An American Slayer in Northern England
by SCWLC
Summary: Buffy’s actually a witch and it’s about time the Wizarding world caught on to muggle magics. BA 'ship. I know some of you want a sequel. It's not forthcoming.
1. Prologue

Title: An American Slayer in Northern England  
  
Author: SCWLC  
  
Disclaimer: Buffy and Angel and all the rest belong to the almighty Joss Whedon, while the Hogwarts gang belong to JK Rowling.  
  
Summary: Buffy's actually a witch and it's about time the Wizarding world caught on to muggle magics.  
  
Timeline: Set primarily in HP book six and BtVS AU season three.  
  
Notes: Sorry to all you Harry/Buffy fans out there, she's going to be with Angel. I'm just too much a B/A 'shipper to do anything else. Also, this is a test. I'm seeing if anyone really wants any more of this story, has any complaints about it etc. Finally, I'll post the whole thing eventually and the title, notes, and other things may change between now and then. So on to the prologue.  
  
Feedback: Leave a review of course, but if you'd rather email me directly the address is scwlc@yahoo.ca  
  
***********************  
  
Los Angeles - Summer 1991  
  
"Joyce look!" Hank Summers said excitedly to his wife. "My old boarding school has accepted Buffy as a student. I can't wait to take her to England and get her school supplies-"  
  
Joyce's eyes widened as she heard her happy husband. "Give me that! You weren't going to even consult me on sending our daughter to a school in a foreign country?" she interrupted him.  
  
Frowning slightly the man replied, "Joyce, I just want Buffy to have the very best education that's possible."  
  
"So there isn't a school in the US that could possibly educate her well enough? A school in LA say?" Joyce asked, annoyed. There was also something wrong with this letter of acceptance. She couldn't quite put her finger on it.  
  
There was a moment of silence, then Hank said to her, "So you don't see . . . I mean, it's not . . ." He trailed off helplessly while Joyce brandished the letter.  
  
"No," she told him flatly.  
  
A small blonde child came thumping down the stairs, dragging a stuffed pig after her. "Mom? Daddy? What's going on?"  
  
"Nothing Pumpkin," Hank said to his girl. "Listen sweetie, Daddy wants to talk to you about something-"  
  
Joyce shot a glare at him. "Hank, we're not going to . . ." she jerked a significant head at the letter in her hand. He shook his head and led his ten-year-old daughter out to the porch.  
  
"You're unbelievable Joyce, a muggle through and through," he muttered under his breath before he began to tell his daughter about a wonderful world she was a part of.  
  
Staring after her daughter and husband for a moment, Joyce shook her head and dropped the letter in the trash. The letterhead, "Hogwarts School of . . ." the rest was obscured by the trash. She slammed the lid back down and went back to making dinner.  
  
***  
  
Los Angeles - Spring 1995  
  
"Daddy I can't keep this up. I know you want me to be good at this stuff, but I can't take this split tutoring in being a witch and going to high school!" Buffy cried to her father.  
  
Hank sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The separation was rapidly escalating into a divorce fight, and even though he wanted to stay with his daughter Joyce's unbelievable muggleness was pulling them apart. She was simply unable to believe even the most blatant displays of magic and every year, when the letter from Hogwarts arrived it was as though she couldn't even see the words "Witchcraft and Wizardry." He pulled his attention back to his daughter. "Honey, you never minded before." He tried to be reasonable.  
  
Her eyes filling with tears she pressed her lips together and looked away. "I just can't take the stress. Even if I'm never licensed to do magic on my own I just can't do this. And since I'm not going to get to go to a real magic school I might as well hang up my wand." Buffy hated to do this. The fact was that being the Slayer and being normal and being a witch all at the same time weren't compatible. Worse, even though her father was a respected wizard businessman in the magical community he, and apparently the entire wizarding community, couldn't accept the world of demons and vampires the she lived in as the Slayer. They believed in it as little as most normal people believed in magic of any kind.  
  
There was a moment of silence, the man remembering his daughter locked away in a muggle mental institution because of a nervous breakdown. His lips tightened as he considered the thought that he might have caused it. The girl looking at her father and wishing there was a way to prove to him that there was more to the non-muggle world than his magic. Finally he let out a heavy sigh. "Alright. I'll stop giving you the magic home schooling. You need to remember though-"  
  
"I know. No magic without a licensed witch or wizard or I'll never be able to do magic again." Buffy blinked away tears. It was the one thing other than slaying that she felt really herself when doing it. But she couldn't do all three lives and this was the least problem to drop. Father and daughter shared a moment before Hank stood and said, "Why don't we go for some ice cream?"  
  
Buffy smiled and hugged him before skipping into the house and telling her mother. Hank stayed on the front porch a moment longer wondering if he was doing the right thing, especially given Voldemort's return in England. Then he shook off his melancholy and followed his daughter.  
  
************  
  
Sunnydale - Winter 1998  
  
Buffy and Angel made their way to the ship, Angel carrying the box on his shoulder as they walked arm in arm. When they reached the gangplank Angel set the box down. "I should go the rest of the way alone." He tried not to look as depressed as he felt. It would be easier if they parted ways here. She was masterfully holding back tears, and Angel was not going to cry in front of her. Buffy was strong, she would still be there when he got back.  
  
"Okay." Buffy said. She could see Angel was busy being strong so that she could be strong too. *Dammit! I hate doing the right thing!*  
  
"But I'll be back. I will." Angel swore to himself he would be back. And he would be there for her even if she had found someone else. His heart twisted inside of him at the thought.  
  
Her voice reflected every bit of the heartbreak she felt as she asked, "When? Six months, a year? You don't know how long it's gonna take or if we'll even..." Buffy just couldn't say it. He had to survive to come back to her. He had to. She looked at the ground with the unshed tears pricking her eyes.  
  
"Hey. . ." Angel reached forward to get her to meet his eyes. "If we'll even what?" Angel thought he had a pretty good idea of what she was going to say. Her answer surprised him.  
  
"Well, if you haven't noticed, someone pretty much always wants us dead." Buffy was not going to cry. He had always said he was proud of her for being strong, and she was not going to let him see her break down.  
  
His denial was immediate. "Don't say that. We'll be fine." Just the thought that she would be here with no one to protect her back made him feel sick.  
  
Buffy tried to find a way to make him see reason, to stay, even though she knew it wasn't reasonable, "We don't know that."  
  
"We can't know, Buffy. Nobody can. That's just the deal." He paused for a moment. Drinking in the sight and scent of her. "I have something for you. For your birthday. I. . . I was gonna give it to you earlier, but . . . " he trailed off and simply held out the ring. If she agreed to wear it they would be promised to one another. If she refused . . . Angel held his figurative breath.  
  
"It's beautiful." Buffy said. She had seen that design somewhere before. Where?  
  
"My people -- before I was changed -- they exchanged this as a sign of devotion. It's a claddagh ring. The hands represent friendship, the crown represents loyalty . . . and the heart . . . Well, you know . . ." the moment was bittersweet. She was promising herself to him just as he was about to leave for God only knew how long. He wanted to tell her it was a betrothal ring, but it was a little unfair right before he left. "Wear it with the heart pointing towards you. It means you belong to somebody. Like this." He showed her his own ring on his finger. She touched his hand, leaned over and kissed the ring. "Put it on." He took the ring from her and slipped it onto her finger.  
  
"I don't wanna do this," Buffy said with a sob. She felt like someone was reaching into her chest pulling out her heart and stomping on it. Okay, not so poetic, but it was accurate.  
  
Angel understood her pain and was resisting the urge to break down in tears himself. He settled for trying to let his voice and touch let her know how much he wanted to stay. "Me either."  
  
"So don't go," she pleaded. He just looked at her as they leaned closer together, and let his eyes close as they kissed. For a moment the world fell away and he relaxed into the feelings her closeness inspired, the scent of her rising arousal and the way she fit so perfectly against him.  
  
"Buffy . . . I . . ." Angel forced the words past his lips. "I love you." He was rewarded with a brilliant smile.  
  
"I love you too," she whispered, struggling to hold in a sob. "You'd better get on that ship before I drag you home." He nodded, kissed her briefly once more than strode toward the ship. "Good-" she started to say.  
  
He turned back. "I won't say goodbye because it'll sound final. I am coming back to you. I promise." Then he turned and vanished into the shadows on the boat. Buffy waited while the men finished loading the ship up, stayed as they cast off and watched until it had vanished from view in the dawn light. Then she slowly turned and made her way back to the car where Jenny Calendar had patiently waited until she was ready to leave.  
  
Buffy looked at the ring on her finger and whispered, "You promised."  
  
***  
  
Sunnydale - Spring 1998  
  
"Buffy Anne Summers!" Joyce shouted, staring in a fury at the Polaroid in her hand.  
  
The blonde teenager came running down the stairs. "What is it Mom?"  
  
One eyebrow raised in a position that would make Mr. Spock proud, Joyce held the photo out and said, "Can you tell me why I found this picture on the floor of your room?"  
  
"Huh?" said Buffy before she saw its contents. "Mom I can explain-"  
  
Amused in spite of her anger, she replied, "I can't wait to hear this."  
  
"Well you see I was on the beach and these guys attacked me," Buffy said hurriedly her eyes flickering back and forth as she concentrated on her narrative. "So I fell into this really slimy bunch of seaweed and stuff and I just couldn't wear my shirt home. Angel came along and rescued me from those guys and lent me his shirt so I'd have something to wear until I changed." Buffy looked at her mother with wide, innocent eyes and waited for a verdict.  
  
"So why is there a picture that looks like you're wearing nothing but that shirt, an older man wearing no shirt, and the two of you kissing?" Her voice and expression hardened. "Kissing, of course, being the best I can do at the moment since what you two actually seem to be doing in this picture is not something a mother wants to see her daughter doing with an older, handsome experienced man." Joyce's eyebrow was back up again and Buffy winced, knowing that it was a very bad sign when the eyebrow couldn't come back down.  
  
She still tried to wriggle out. "Well I'm gonna kill Willow, 'cause it's all her fault," Buffy told her mother. Joyce did not look convinced. "You see, she had this new camera and wanted to try it out and stuff. So when she yelled 'Cheese!' Angel turned around and tripped and stuff and that's how we wound up on the bed." Buffy was proud that she had even managed to tell some of the truth. Angel *had* tripped and fallen on top of her.  
  
The female parental unit was less impressed. "So he tripped and his lips landed on top of yours, one hand landed under your behind and the other on your breasts? Am I right?" Joyce inquired. Buffy flushed but said nothing. "I'm going to ask your father if that school he was so eager to send you to will still accept you." Joyce watched with some satisfaction as Buffy's mouth dropped open and stayed that way. "Yes, the boarding school in England."  
  
"But . . . Angel isn't even here anymore. He had to leave and he hasn't come back yet!" Buffy said, frantically.  
  
Snorting, her mother replied, "And if you think that's going to convince me to let you stay here where you're involved with a man who is far too old for you, you are sadly mistaken." She turned away and said, "You'd better start packing because even if you aren't accepted into that school I'm still going to send you to the farthest boarding school I can manage to keep you away from Angel." Then Joyce marched up the stairs. 


	2. Arrival

Disclaimer: See part one for details.  
  
Notes: Okay, lemme see. Thanks for the reviews, and I'm extending my apologies to those who are about to be disappointed by my getting around Buffy telling the Scoobies. I have also never been to a British mall so I don't know how late or early they close in general but if it bothers you pretend that's it's a holiday or something. Kudos to those who get the Seinfeld reference. Unless I misspelled it in which case I suspect no one will get it. If I've missed anything let me know and I'll try to clear it up in my next update. Oh yeah, Order of the Pheonix spoilers will appear in this. Not yet, but soon. So on to Part One!  
  
*****************************  
  
Things had moved quickly after that. Buffy had barely had time to tell her friends, Giles, help arrange for Kendra to come and replace her and get packed before her father, in transports of joy, had swooped in and dragged her off to England. She had wanted to tell them about the wizarding world, but the fact was that it was essentially illegal to tell anyone not directly involved, either a family member or in a situation that required special dispensation. Since no one believed in the efficacy of so-called muggle magic still and her friends and Watcher weren't family she couldn't tell them without bringing down a squad of aurors to wipe their memories. After all, Giles and Willow were too determined for their own good when it came to investigating supernatural phenomena and Buffy deemed it too much of a risk to tell them.  
  
Now Buffy nervously paced around the inside of the wand shop. She had lost her original wand one day when she was forced to use it to stake a vampire. It hadn't taken the abuse well and Buffy had been forced to ask her father for a new one. He had told her they would get her new one at some wand store in Diagon Alley. It was when Buffy had been talking to Kendra that she had an idea.  
  
"Here," she had said, handing her sister slayer a bracelet. "It's a friendship bracelet. I used a bit of my hair in it. I exchanged a few of these with friends of mine." Buffy handed her the colourful band and was surprised to see a small smile on the other girl's face.  
  
The Jamaican abruptly reached up and plucked a few hairs from her own head. "Den perhaps you will turn dese into another bracelet for yourself." She smiled back. "I would make you one but I do not know how."  
  
Buffy had grinned back and promised she would send Kendra a book on the art of making friendship bracelets and would make herself one with the hairs she had been given. She silently decided to also send a few to the wand- maker to see if they could be used in her own wand.  
  
So there she stood, anxiously waiting to see if Kendra's hair had been made into a wand or not. "Well?" she called, finally getting too antsy to wait quietly any longer. She wished Willow or Xander were there to keep her spirits up in the creepy little shop but Xander was completely magicless and Willow, although very talented in wiccan-style witchery, according to Jenny Calendar who was teaching her, hadn't even a spark of the kind of magic that set the wizarding world apart. It was strange how the two magics were invisible to one another in active form but the properties of magical herbs and the hairs, toenails and whatever else from magical creatures were effective with both types of magic. Even if Giles snickered at the very notion of thestrals.  
  
The wizened old man finally reappeared and said, "This was such unusual hair. Do you have any more? It's an excellent wand material and even if this does not suit you, which I cannot guarantee that it will, it will definitely sell to someone it conducts magical power so well."  
  
Buffy chuckled slightly and said, "Sorry, that source is all tapped." Then she held out her hand. "Can I try it now?" He handed it to her and was as startled as Hank when Buffy gently waved the wand. A gentle wind sprang up and the tiny shop suddenly seemed dark to the two men, but it was comforting and wild at the same time. Buffy laughed in delight as a feeling of protectedness settled into every nook and cranny of the place.  
  
Ollivander stared at the young girl. He had never been so taken by surprise by a wand's owner. Gradually the feelings of both wildness and warmth faded and all that was left was a quiet feeling of protective strength. "Well." He took a breath. "It seems you were right. This was an unusual wand in several ways, but it would be foolish of me to try to give that wand to anyone else." He watched them go. The wand had been made up of sacred oak, rowan, ash and, for whatever bizarre reason, palm. It was the first time he had seen a wand that demanded more than one wood and he had never seen such a curious magical core. He shrugged and went back to work, watching with interest as his door seemed to take a delight in shocking visitors to his shop with static electricity throughout the day, but only select alumni of Slytherin House that had associations with Voldemort.  
  
Buffy eagerly spent the day collecting her books, robes, owl, magic supplies and exploring Diagon Alley. Hank started in surprise when, the next day, Buffy told him she wanted to go shopping for school supplies. "We just spent yesterday buying your supplies. What else do you need?" he demanded.  
  
Buffy rolled her eyes at him. "For one thing I need binders and lined paper for taking notes and stuff, pens, pencils-"  
  
"You know quills and parchment will be provided at the school," Hank told his daughter. She just looked at him as though he had grown a second head. So, he sighed and took her to one of London's malls. Buffy squealed with delight as she took in all the stylish clothing on the racks and the new high-heeled chunky boots she had determined, with much research, fit within the parameters of the school's uniform. "I thought we were getting *school* supplies, not more shoes," Hank said to Buffy.  
  
A moment of silence followed by another look, this time as though he had turned into a particularly stupid houseplant. "Dad. I need to have good clothes for when I'm not in class and stuff. I need to look my best. Who knows what the other kids think is cool! I need to at least look good on my first day and," she added as he opened his mouth, "If you even try to tell me none of the kids there care about wearing anything but their uniforms I'm going to laugh like I was possessed by a hyena."  
  
He blinked, raised a hand and opened his mouth to object to the simile, closed and lowered, opened and raised again, then gave up and followed her into a clothing store. Finally she bought the school things she wanted and an exhausted Hank drove a still vibrating Buffy home. "I don't know if I can move," he groaned.  
  
"Why aren't they open any later?" Buffy grumbled. "Any decent mall should be open until at least eight."  
  
Having decided that arguing with Buffy was useless he just watched as she puttered around the hotel room, fussing with the new laptop her mother had bought her in a fit of guilt. Finally he had to ask, "Why are you bringing that? You know that technology doesn't work on the Hogwarts grounds."  
  
Surprisingly she grinned. "I think I may have a way around that," she told him, refusing to say any more.  
  
The next day they were on the train to Hogwarts. It was eerily empty in Hank's opinion, but they had to go early so that the professors could determine what year they should put Buffy into. It had also been decided that she would be sorted separately from the first years since there was no need to make her suffer the stigma of being sorted with them.  
  
On arriving the first order of business was to get Buffy sorted so that she could get herself settled into her house. They were greeted at the door by an old man with an enormous white beard, long white hair, and what seemed to be a perpetually amused look on his face. It turned out he was the headmaster, ("Principal," Hank whispered to Buffy who nodded gratefully) Dumbledore. "I see you've quite a muggle turn of mind the both of you," he said with a smile. "I've been looking forward to meeting you for a very long time Miss Summers."  
  
"Really," Buffy said. "The last time I heard that . . ." She trailed off as the two men looked at her. "You know what? Nevermind." She suppressed all thoughts of both Giles and Angel firmly. It would just make her homesickness and Angelsickness worse. She pondered the word Angelsickness while her father and Dumbledore talked about that stupid wizard sport quidditch. She liked flying well enough, actually, she adored it and terrified her father evey time she was on a broom that she was going to break her neck with the stunts she did, but to play a game where there were bowling balls flying around trying to knock you off your broom? Stupid.  
  
Of course, thoughts of stupid risks just brought her mind back to one time when Angel had yelled at her for taking stupid risks when patrolling as though it was her fault Xander and Willow had taken all her stakes before she left the library. Then he had hugged her and followed this with making out on top of the Henderson crypt. Buffy blinked back tears as she thought of how much danger he was in and how she couldn't help him. Then Dumbledore said, "Bubble-Yum," to a column in the wall and it opened to show a staircase spiralling up.  
  
"So how does this sorting thing work?" Buffy asked once she was settled into a chair opposite Dumbledore's desk.  
  
The old man stood and walked over to a shelf where a grimy, old, torn and threadbare hat sat crumpled. "All you must do is place the hat on you head and then it will tell us which house you belong in."  
  
"That's it?" Buffy asked eyeing the hat dubiously.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Dumbledore approached her and began to lower the hat down. It settled over her head and a moment later Buffy heard it speak to her telepathically. *Telepathy. Telepathically. It's really quite interesting how the muggles have come up with words for things that we take for granted but have no words for. And . . . Oh my. I've never seen anything like this. You're a Slayer. What's . . . Well, this has been interesting but I would advise you not to mention your Calling to anyone just yet. The Wizarding world knows as little about that magic as the Muggle world at large. Not even Dumbledore who's really quite impressive for a human.*  
  
Buffy, under the hat, raised an eyebrow and silently asked, *What I am is all fine and dandy, but aren't you supposed to tell people which clique I'm being sorted into?*  
  
*Clique? I suppose you're right, but it's what I was created to do. Anyhow, there's only one place in this school for you, and although I suspect you would be happier to be placed in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff you wouldn't belong, so . . . *  
  
"Gryffindor!"  
  
Dumbledore promptly took the hat off her head. "Talkative little beastie isn't he?" Buffy commented as she watched the hat be laid back on the shelf. It stuck its tongue out at her and she responded in kind. Then frowned trying to work out just where the hat had gotten a tongue or a mouth.  
  
Chuckling the headmaster responded, "You probably aren't the first to think so." He then explained Buffy's test schedule and called for Professor McGonagall to take Buffy to the Gryffindor tower. When she arrived Buffy turned to see a strict-looking woman in a black robe. "Ah! Minerva. I would like to introduce you to Buffy Summers. She'll be with Gryffindor, I'm not certain how many years. We'll determine that after we see how she does on her tests. Miss Summers, this is Professor Minerva McGonagall the transfiguration teacher and the head of Gryffindor house."  
  
They stood and Hank turned to Buffy. "I'll see you this Christmas Buffy." He smiled at her and then pulled her into a hug. "Be good. Don't burn any school buildings down."  
  
The look on Buffy's face was a competition of sour and sadness. "Thanks a lot Dad," she said, her naturally ironic temperament coming to the fore. "Goodbye."  
  
Her father vanished down the hall in one direction and McGonagall took her down another hallway. She silently led Buffy up some stairs to a portrait. "Ragamuffin," she said, and the lady in the portrait smiled.  
  
"I haven't seen this one before. Where are you from dear?" she asked.  
  
Buffy smiled back. "California. I've been home schooled in witchcraft until now."  
  
"Well I hope you have a good time this year lovey." Then the potrait swung back to reveal a comfortable room.  
  
Buffy pulled her suitcase into the room after her and looked at McGonagall expectantly. "So now what?"  
  
The woman raised an eyebrow but didn't say the reprimand on the tip of her tongue. Instead she pointed to a set of stairs on the other side of the room. "Up those stairs is the girls' dormitory, the other set leads to the boys. You will not go into the boys dormitory and I expect to not find any boys in the girls'." She sent a stern glare at Buffy. "Any infractions will be punished and points will be removed from Gryffindor. Do you understand?"  
  
"Yes ma'am," Buffy said and saluted. McGonagall almost smiled at the impertinence. "Um . . . So can I take any bed up there or are they like . . . designated or something?"  
  
This time the professor did smile. "You may take whichever bed you wish. I will leave you here to get settled. Supper will be at six in the main hall. If you get lost, just ask any of the paintings for directions." With that, McGonagall vanished through the door leaving Buffy alone in the tower. She sighed and hauled her luggage up the stairs. She had already dropped her owl Newman off in the owlery so all she really had to do was unpack. On reaching the dormitory she went straight to the window and was delighted to see that it was large enough for her to climb through, opened over a rooftop not too far below, and that there was an easy route from the roof to the ground and back up again. For the Slayer anyways. Or maybe a vampire.  
  
The thought of a vampire sobered her immediately. Hunting was going to be difficult here, especially with that forbidden forest nearby. Buffy could feel the power emanating from it and resisted the urge to go investigate. It also made her think of Angel and wonder what he was doing, if he was alright and if he really was going to come home to see her. Buffy looked sadly at the ring on her finger. She had talked to Willow about it and found out it was like a wedding ring. She looked out the window again and whispered to the wind, "Be safe."  
  
**********************  
  
Angel was grouching around in Yorkshire, genuinely cranky his route back to Sunnydale had been detoured there. It wasn't that he had anything against Yorkshire in particular, but he was in a hurry to get back to Sunnydale and he didn't want to be slouching around in England unless Buffy was with him. As he turned a corner he nearly ran headlong into a group of men wearing robes and bizarre masks. "Sorry," he muttered trying to go around them.  
  
Instead of moving out of his way the group shifted to block his path. "Well, how interesting. A muggle all alone at night," said one.  
  
Eyes narrowed Angel replied, "I don't know what a 'muggle' is but it sounds like an insult." He pulled himself to his full height and drew on centuries of practice at looking menacing and continued. "I'll ignore the comment if you get out of my way." He lowered his head slightly and smiled nastily.  
  
While some suddenly looked nervous, to his satisfaction, the others didn't seem impressed. Interestingly he couldn't scent even a bit of fear or apprehension on their parts. "You think you can threaten us?" A chuckle rippled around the group and Angel felt a slight chill. "Muggle."  
  
His temper firmly reined in Angel began to push his way through the men. He had no warning as one shouted "Crucio!" and pain enveloped his world. His last thought before he fell unconscious was of Buffy and the hope that she would be alright.  
  
Miles away Buffy, asleep in her dorm room, woke with a scream. She sat up shuddering and tried to convince herself it was only a dream. She almost managed.  
  
******************  
  
The next morning Buffy felt exhausted from lack of sleep but put it aside. She had to concentrate on her placement tests. She'd already chosen her classes, but there were most likely things she would have to make up and who knew whether or not she'd remember everything in a test. Luckily her first test was a simple flying test by the flying instructor Mrs. Hooch to be certain Buffy's skills on a broom were up to par. Buffy did as she was asked and finished off her sedate (by her admittedly daredevil's standards) flight by doing a loop. The teacher yelled at her when she came back down but didn't give her detention or anything. Buffy passed that one with flying colours and went to her next exam with somewhat more confidence.  
  
The charms professor was a fluttery man but his test was simply a brief oral quiz about which charms and hexes were which and when to use them. Then he had a practical which he started by asking her to levitate a few objects then had her cast a few charms. When she finished she felt, if not confident, more like she wasn't going to flunk all the tests.  
  
Potions came next and Buffy bounced into the dungeon cheerfully. It was one of her favourite subjects. You got to mix all these ingredients together and then when you drank or spread it something cool would happen. Even when you screwed up you got to see explosions and stuff. She settled into her seat and waited for the Professor to arrive. It didn't take him long and Buffy was immediately unimpressed. Oh she would have to be cautious around him to avoid crummy marks no doubt, but the man was like a bad Master impersonator or something. He was trying so hard to be scary that she couldn't help but think of everything she'd ever seen that was scarier in comparison. "Miss Summers."  
  
She glanced at her test schedule. "Professor Snape." She stood and smiled. "So what are we doing first?"  
  
Looking almost surprised he replied, "I assume you see the ingredients laid out? Make a liquid fire potion, we'll test it in the brazier when you're done. I expect it to be flawless." He turned away and stalked toward the front of the room.  
  
"Do you want the Uisge Teine potion, Ba'ar Mayim solution or the Flammare potion?" she asked him. He stopped dead and turned to her.  
  
"You've made an Uisge Teine potion before?" he asked. "Then you should know that it requires both a burning sprig of heather and pine sap that has been let simmer for a day and a night." His smirk irritated her as he clearly waited for her response.  
  
Buffy shrugged noncommitally, "True enough, if you need the full spectacular effect of fire in a bottle but you don't need those to make it work." She raised her eyes to meet his. "If all you want is a liquid that will set things on fire, all you need is the rest of the potion."  
  
"You require olive oil and water from the Dead Sea to make Ba'ar Mayim," he said, his gaze never wavering.  
  
Buffy grinned. "Substitutions can sometimes work pretty well. All you need is tap water and salt from the Dead Sea to make up for the water part and olive oil can be gotten from the kitchen." She shrugged and added, "Or I could just transmogrify a glass of water into olive oil."  
  
Snape seemed almost about to smile back, then he pointed at the cauldron in front of her and said, "Flammare potion."  
  
Fixing up the potion quickly Buffy reflected on her good fortune. As a slayer, she had determined early on that liquid fire potions could be very useful to her and had built up a minor lexicon of such potions for use on vampires. They would be better than holy water for emergencies and had wished she had some when setting the gym on fire in LA. Now that she was going to be licensed after all, Buffy felt no compunction abotu showing off how much she knew about such things. Finishing quickly, she marched over to the brazier and dropped a couple dry twigs into it then watched in satisfaction as they burst into flames as the potion was poured over them.  
  
Her professor nodded then said, "Reasonable. Now a wit-sharpening potion." She opened her mouth and his lips twitched. "Acramens potion," he clarified. Buffy grinned back at him and went to work. Potions was so simple. Follow each step and voila! Instant magic thingy. She finished adding the last ingredient with a flourish then handed it to her professor.  
  
"I'd drink it to test it, but I think we'll be able to tell better if you drink it," she told him mischeivously.  
  
At first he glared at her, but the effects of a student who was both good and unafraid of him began to get the better of his humour. It wasn't that Miss Granger was a terrible student but her methodical precision and complete lack of passion for anything save an excellent grade irritated him. In this new Gryffindor he had finally found a student who wasn't unreasoningly terrified of him and showed a genuine flair for his subject rather than the cautious technical excellence of most others. "Perhaps you are right Miss Summers," he finally said. "You appear to have been gifted with far too much wit for your own good."  
  
Two more potions, both times she again challenged his knowledge, and he let her go. He was particularly impressed with her growth potion which she made using an interesting variation he had never heard of. Buffy chuckled when he actually looked stunned at the beautiful roses blossoming in the clay pot. "It's an old family recipe," she told him.  
  
Buffy bounced out of the potions test. Either she was going to get it later for sheer insolence or she'd just made her first friend on the staff. Hoping it was the latter rather than the former, the girl paused. "I have spent way too much time around Giles," she muttered.  
  
After lunch she trotted up to the dorm and finished unpacking. She began to twist and turn the satellite dish around and grumbled at the wires that refused to stay where they were supposed to. Finally she got the signal and moved on to getting her laptop tested and everything else checked. Buffy left the tower for her next exam triumphant at her success of introducing technology to Hogwarts.  
  
Transfiguration sucked big time. It had never been one of Buffy's strong suits. She could manage simple things, changing tweezers to scissors for example, but her mind wavered when she tried more complicated transformations and everything either turned into miniature sculptures of Angel, some that made even her stern-faced professor blush and glare, or into things related in some way to slaying. Buffy finally left with the feeling that the head of her house had given up on her.  
  
Then came history. Buffy went in and Buffy went out again. Everything else was a blank to her. Thank heaven she had decided against taking history.  
  
There was one more exam set before dinner, then four more the day after. The last one of the day was the divination test. Buffy mounted the ladder with some apprehension. She was the Slayer and had all kinds of sixth-sense- y stuff going on in her head, but it might be totally invisible to this Professor Trelawney. One hour later Buffy left and headed straight for dinner. She'd decided within minutes that the woman was a crackpot and now was only waiting to find out what the other professors were like before she traded that class in for another.  
  
Dinner was uneventful aside from the funny looks that several of the teachers gave her when she was cheerfully greeted by Snape and, in turn, greeted in a very distressed manner by McGonagall. Afterwards Buffy headed for the tower and settled in to write Willow and email.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Dear Wills,  
  
I can't believe how much I miss you guys. I'm actually getting along okay with some of the teachers even if my house leader thinks I'm insane. What's this house thing? Well the students are divided into four 'houses'. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Don't ask me where those names came from, I couldn't possibly tell you.  
  
(Buffy smirked. Technically it *was* true.)  
  
I'm going to have to dump a class and trade it in for something else because the teacher's a nutcase. She's so much like Drusilla it's scary. I kept expecting Spike to lunge out of the dark at me and threaten to kill me. Speaking of the bleached buffoon, (Can you smack Giles for me? He's made me type buffoon!) how are things of slayage going back home? Remember, if you guys need me for anything don't hesitate to ask. I'll break out of the castle and come right home.  
  
Oh yeah. I totally forgot to mention that the school is in a ginormous castle. I mean this thing is huge! It's a big, drafty, old, rocky, turreted with a moat castle. Can you believe it? There's a forest next to us that no one is supposed to go into but I'll hit it for vamps and stuff tonight maybe.  
  
Has Angel come home yet? I miss him so much Willow. I keep having this feeling that he's in trouble and I can't do anything about it. Please tell me he's home and safe and waiting for me to come back.  
  
Give my love and stuff to Xander-I-don't-know-how-email-works Harris, and to Mr. I-refuse-to-learn-how-email-works Giles. How was his date with Ms Calendar? I know it was like a month and a half ago now but I just didn't have a chance to write you or anything while Dad ran me all over London and stuff to help me get used to things. I also found the most adorable boots for me and I'm sending you a t-shirt in the mail. It'll look so good on you Oz will totally flip. How is Oz? How is dating Oz? How are smoochies with Oz? Tell me everything! I demand to have vicarious smoochies since I'm not getting any from Angel.  
  
Is Angel back now?  
  
I know I sound pathetic but I just miss him.  
  
And on that note, I'll sign off and write to you again soon.  
  
Buffy 


	3. Settling In

Disclaimer: See part one for details.  
  
Notes: Okay, I know Hagrid's accent doesn't play out like this in the books but I can't remember what it does look like on paper nor can I recall the sound from the movie. So, I just sort of threw in some lower class Britishness into it. Just go with it unless you have some real corrections for me on that. I just realised I may have slightly messed up everyone's ages a touch, but I'm asking you all to just go with it. I think I meant seventh book not sixth for one thing. Anyhow, thanks to all you wonderful feedbackers and I'm kinda sorry about how short this part is but it's the way things worked out.  
  
*******************  
  
Buffy sent off the email and decided now was the time to see if her guesses about easy exit and entry from the tower were right. She changed out of the robes sending a look of disgust their way, and put on a pair of jeans and one of the new sweaters she'd talked her father into buying her in London. Then she scooped up her slaying bag and climbed onto the window ledge. A moment later she made the drop to the roof beneath her and ran along it until she reached the next step down. A few more easy jumps and she was on the ground at a comfortable jog to the forest.  
  
On entering she quickly noticed how oddly quiet things were there. In Breakers Woods back in Sunnydale there were always the noises of chipmunks and other small animals around you. Here everything was too silent and Buffy slipped a stake out of her bag just to be ready. She had deliberately left her wand behind knowing that she couldn't afford to slip up and draw Dumbledore's attention to her being in the forest. Her night vision was good enough that she didn't need a flashlight or wand's light spell to see her way around and after all, she'd be a pretty crummy slayer if she couldn't handle a quick jaunt in the woods, forbidden or not. Several minutes into the hike Buffy sensed she was being watched. There was an air of menace to whatever it was, but not of evil precisely.  
  
Buffy slowly came to a halt and began to extend her senses outward. She was definitely being watched but whatever it was seemed to be a simple predator and not something that was evil by nature. Very dangerous, but it held no deliberate malice. She slowly began walking again, all senses alert.  
  
"Who are you?" hissed a voice nearby.  
  
She whipped around and began to peer into the darkness. "That depends. Show yourself and I might say," was her cocky reply. A giant spider lowered itself from one of the trees and settled in front of her, eyeing her speculatively.  
  
"Now I have shown myself to you. Who are you and why have you entered the forest?" it asked, mandibles clicking.  
  
A small smile graced Buffy's face. "I was just checking out the lay of the land. As to who I am, I'm just a girl," she told it with a smile. "Now how about you?"  
  
"I am Aragog," it told her. "And my children and I are very hungry." With those words hundreds of large spiders came hurtling out from behind the trees and rapidly surrounded her.  
  
Sighing the Slayer pulled two long knives from her bag and let it fall to the ground. "Okay, I don't wanna have to do this but if this has to be done the hard way . . ." Buffy shrugged and trailed off suggestively.  
  
Instead of attacking as Buffy had feared they would, the spiders all backed away. "You are the Slayer," Aragog said in surprise.  
  
"Yeah," she said somewhat hesitantly.  
  
The spider bowed to her. "We will not harm one whose life is so important to the defeat of evil." It gestured at the other spiders and they vanished into the darkness of the forest as quickly as they had appeared. Aragog's head tilted as it considered her, "We must follow our nature," it informed her gravely.  
  
"I know," Buffy responded. "You're a natural predator on humans. I get it." She sighed. "If I come across any of you guys snacking on people I'll have to stop you y'know."  
  
It nodded. "I know. Why are you here?" it asked.  
  
Buffy shrugged again. "I'm actually going to Hogwarts," she told him. "Although this may suck more than being at home in terms of sneaking out to get vampires and stuff." There was a chagrined look on her face as she said so, and to her surprise the spider chuckled.  
  
"It is unfortunate the wizards do not know of the magics outside their own." There was another pause and then the spider told her, "If you wish to seek your rightful prey there is a small band of demonic vampires hidden in a cave to the east of here. Fare you well Slayer." Then the spider scuttled off into the night leaving Buffy more than a little taken aback.  
  
"Right. Giant spiders and caves full of vampires. Sunnydale eat your heart out," Buffy muttered as she trotted off in the direction indicated. There was indeed a small group of vamps hiding out in the cave and so Buffy did her thing and wiped them out before heading back to the castle to get some sleep. Tomorrow she was going to discover whether she was trading Divination for Care of Magical Creatures or History of Magic. It all depended on if the professor teaching the critter class was better than the history professor. She might have considered Ancient Runes, but the only subject she did worse in than history was any of the foreign languages she'd tried to take.  
  
****************************  
  
The agony had been going on for hours and Angel felt his throat beginning to feel raw from his screams. He had no idea how long he'd been in the dungeon the masked bastards had transferred him to but it already felt like an eternity. Abruptly the pain stopped and his eyes slowly focussed on his surroundings. The room was full of men in the black robes who fell to their knees as a shadowy figure slowly moved into the room. One of the men spoke up. "My Lord."  
  
"What is this?" the figure demanded. "Have you reason to dally with this muggle?"  
  
One figure stood and swiftly moved to the figure who was apparantly the leader, then dropped to his knees again. "My Lord, he is no ordinary muggle fur he has withstood the cruciatus curse for far longer than anyone, wizard or muggle, that I have ever seen." Angel had no notion what exactly this meant, but he suspected that the cruciatus curse the speaker had mentioned was the reason he had been in so much pain. Briefly he wondered if this had anything to do with his own curse but quickly banished all notions of mentioning it to the men before him. Better to wait until he had a better notion of who they were and what they were planning.  
  
As the others continued to speak about spells and curses Angel's mind wandered despite his best attempts to focus on the conversation of the masked men and gather his strength for escape. He closed his eyes as his mind returned to the night he left Sunnydale and how sad she had looked on the docks. From there it was a small step to simply recalling the balm of her presence. He nearly fell into a fantasy of her bursting through the door followed by Giles, Willow, Cordelia and Xander to rescue him. He shook his head slightly to clear the images from it. Unfortunately, the small movement caught the attention of the leader.  
  
"So, you are awake," the man seemed surprised by this and Angel decided to continue playing the role of confused innocent. From what little he had gathered they had no notion as to his true nature and Angel had no desire to correct them yet.  
  
He took a breath and, wincing internally, put a tinge of fear into his voice. "Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?" It pained him to show weakness, but it seemed less wise to try being unconcerned given the disadvantage they had him at.  
  
"Why?" the man chuckled sending a chill down the vampire's spine. "Why because you are a pathetic excuse for a creature and because watching a muggle like you writhe in pain amuses me."  
  
Controlling the eyeroll that threatened at the man's display Angel faked a terrified cringe away from the man and continued to fake cowardice. "W- what's a m-muggle?"  
  
"Someone with no magic in him like you," the man said, his pride in being a magician of some kind evident. "Someone so inferior compared to me that you are vermin to be stamped out before you contaminate the purity of the wizarding community." Angel swallowed a retort that since he wasn't human the whole situation had no bearing on him. Instead he just let himself stare blankly at the megalomaniac in front of him. The move seemed to be exactly what the man expected as he swept his cloak to the side in a dramatic move and began to stride off with a snort and the words, "Stupid muggles can't even understand a simple sentence."  
  
"Who are you?" Angel asked again. This time the horror wasn't faked as the hood was pulled back and the shadowed face pulled into view. It might once have been handsome, but something had happened to twist that face into a horrifying mask.  
  
The mask grinned at his reaction and said, "I am Lord Voldemort." He turned again and swept off. As he began to mount the stairs he said to the others offhandedly, "Continue as you were."  
  
The pain returned and Angel soon found himself screaming again.  
  
Buffy woke screaming for the second night and let sobs overtake her as she realised that whatever was happening to Angel there was nothing she could do.  
  
***************************  
  
Buffy was to start off the morning with a test to see her knowledge of Defense Against Dark Arts. The teacher was nice, middle-aged woman who asked Buffy some questions about various creatures, vampires, werewolves, spell and and curses. Then she set Buffy to deal with a batch of Cornish Pixies and asked her to counter several spells and curses the teacher sent her way. It was fairly unremarkable and Buffy left feeling a little unsure of how she did.  
  
Her next test was on some of the basics of Care for Magical Creatures. Hagrid was a very nice man and despite her fears, Buffy rapidly found herself enamoured of the animals. Many of them crowded around her and she found herself under demand for animal cuddling. "Eh Buffy, it's sor' of a pity yer no' takin' my class this year," Hagrid told her.  
  
"Actually, I'm dropping Divination and switching to this," Buffy replied smiling. "I was just waiting to see whether you were better or worse than Binns." She gave the unicorn in the pen one last cuddle before hopping out.  
  
Hagrid frowned a little, "Is this 'cause o' me bein' part giant an' all?" he asked, looking concerned.  
  
"No!" Buffy hurried to reassure him. "I just meant that I've never been good with animals and I suck a history. So that meant that choosing between the classes was going to mean deciding which professor I liked better." She looked at him anxiously until he smiled at her again and relaxed. They chatted for a couple minutes more until Buffy remembered she had another two tests to go through.  
  
She said a hurried goodbye and scampered for herbology. That she was good at and had no fears about. Intimately connected to Potions as it was Buffy usually did well in it. Finally she headed off for her final exam in Arithmancy. She had some misgivings about taking this class despite her father's assurances that she would do fine. Mainly because he would yap on about how hard he had found the class when he was in school, followed by the cryptic comment that she would definitely do better than he had. On opening the first page of her written test Buffy found out why. It was like a math class from middle school. Things she had learned years ago and no longer had any difficulty with (even if calculus was beyond her) were on the test. By the end of her placement exam Buffy had realised why it was that her father had insisted she would find Arithmancy easy. She'd already done all this stuff in normal school.  
  
She headed up to the tower to check her email and write Willow and her mother.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Hey Willow!  
  
I just read your letter, and I'm glad to hear about Xander's new hobby. Maybe trailing around after Cordelia like that will keep him from mocking Angel all the time. But that's not the big thing. I need you to talk to Giles and see what he can tell me about slayer dreams. I think Angel's in trouble 'cause I've been having dreams the past two nights and both felt just like the prophetic dreams I've had in the past. Angel's being tortured and there's nothing I can do. I was wondering if Giles could look into connections or something. Something that will tell him whether I'm dreaming about Angel. Could you also look up a spell to see how he is? I know we don't want him traced, but there has got to be something that will tell you whether he's okay or not. I'm just so worried about him.  
  
Are you guys having a good summer? I've finished taking all the tests and stuff and I've figured out which class I'm going to use to replace the original one. The teacher is really nice and I think that even if I don't do well it will be better than history. Of course now I have to head back out and get the new books and trade in the old ones. I really hope the store has a decent return policy.  
  
How is Kendra? Is she fitting in well? It's just that I worry about her. I mean, she is a slayer but Sunnydale isn't Jamaica. She may be homesick or something. Help her for me will you Wills? I know it's asking a lot of you but I really want her to be happy.  
  
I know this is a short letter, but I don't have much to write at the moment. Just give my love to the others and say hi to Kendra for me.  
  
Buffy  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Then she met with Dumbledore to arrange changing classes before having supper. She had another nightmare that night and woke up trying not to scream again. On the whole Buffy was feeling a tad peeved when she arrived in Diagon Alley late the next day. She was going to have to pick up her books for Care of Magical Creatures and get back to the school in time for dinner. She had no one there with her and it turned out that returning books in the wizarding world was more a more annoying and lengthy process than returning them in the regular world.  
  
She was walking down the street when a voice spoke from behind her. "Oh look. A poor lost little muggle girl." Buffy turned around to see a young man behind her. For several moments she couldn't help but wonder when Spike had become immune to the sun until she picked out the differences between him and the vampire.  
  
"And you are?" she asked cooly the moment her self-possession had returned. Luckily it hadn't taken much time.  
  
He smiled nastily at her and said, "My name is Draco Malfoy muggle. How did you get into Diagon Alley?"  
  
"Muggle?" Buffy giggled. "You think I'm . . ." she trailed off realising he thought her clothes meant she wasn't a witch. "You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover."  
  
Draco sneered and raised his wand. "And you ought not to be here . . . muggle. Locomotor mortis!" he said as he cast the leglocker curse. The blast from his wand missed Buffy entirely as she leapt straight up, caught the edge of a building and swung herself into an elegant pike onto the roof. Instead the spell hit a man with long white hair who fell down and glared up at Draco.  
  
"Draco!" he shouted in fury, then undid the spell on his legs.  
  
The young man looked both flummoxed and terrified. "Father! I . . . I . . . There was a muggle and then she jumped . . ." He trailed off and pointed at the rooftops Buffy had vanished among. She watched as the man dragged his son off. She shrugged to herself and crept along the roofs until she found a small alley she could get off the roofs from without being seen. She trotted back to the train station and silently stared out the window for the trip. The next night the other students were going to arrive and she would find out how well she truly fit into the wizarding world.  
  
TBC... 


	4. Meetings

Disclaimer: See part one for details.  
  
Notes: About Hermione's post-graduate degree, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't exist in the wizarding world like we have at universities. About the clothing thing, I believe that any society where everyone wears robes all the time would be completely unused to the notion of leather pants, and teenaged boys would be particularly stunned by said pants. If you think I'm wrong, too bad. My fic. Finally, so Snape is a little nicer than he is elsewhere. I'm going somewhere with this. Admittedly a decision I made yesterday evening but still...  
  
*******************  
  
Harry, Hermione and Ron cheerily walked into the great hall after dropping their things off in the Gryffindor tower. "It's great to be back," Ron said to his friends. "Do you realise that this is our last year and then we'll be done with school?"  
  
Hermione looked at her boyfriend and sighed. "Maybe for you Ron, but if you'll recall I'm going to be taking a post-graduate degree."  
  
"And I'll never know why 'Mione," he replied. "You already know more than the teachers do."  
  
Before the discussion could degenrate into an argument again Harry said, "Why don't we just enjoy the feast instead of arguing about whether or not Hermione ought to get that degree." He looked up at the table and stopped dead on seeing an unfamiliar blonde girl sitting at the Gryffindor table. "Who's that?"  
  
"Harry! Next time warn us when you're gonna stop like that," Ron said irritably. "Who's who? The new DADA professor?"  
  
Hermione elbowed him. "I think Harry meant the girl our age sitting at the Gryffindor table."  
  
"Well let's find out." Ron intrepidly trotted down the table and sat down next to her. "Hi, I'm Ron Weasly, that's my girlfriend Hermione Granger and that's Harry," he said pointing at his friends. "Who are you?"  
  
The blonde smiled at him and replied, "I'm Buffy. Buffy Summers. I just joined the school to finish up the year here." By then the two H's had joined them at the table. She turned her smile on them. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to show me the ropes."  
  
"What?" Ron asked.  
  
Hermione sighed the sigh of the long suffering and proceeded to explain the reference to Ron while Harry handled Buffy's question. "Sorry about Ron, he's from a pureblooded wizarding family and. . ." Harry shrugged expressively.  
  
Buffy chuckled. "That's okay. I mean, I grew up more or less muggle and I'm also from America. I'm suffering from double culture shock. Thank god my high school librarian was British or I'd never understand a word."  
  
"To answer your question we'd be happy to er, 'show you the ropes'," Harry said. He looked at the other two and let out an expansive sigh of his own. "Someday I'll understand how those two can possibly keep from breaking up." He firmly turned his back on them. "So why are you here instead of going to a school in America?"  
  
Suddenly the blonde's expression became guarded and she bit her lip. "I'd really rather not talk about it." Harry filed this away and watched as her expression changed from suppressed sadness to amusement. "Hey Draco!" she shouted suddenly.  
  
The terrible trio turned to see that Malfoy had, indeed, arrived. He turned and stared at the girl, looking stunned, then stalked over. "You!" he snarled.  
  
"Me," she replied with a still amused grin on her face. "Your father impressed by that curse you cast on him?"  
  
The pale boy turned an interesting shade of red before retorting, "I didn't realise this school was accepting muggles as well as mudbloods now." His colour abruptly abated as though his insult drained the life out of him.  
  
Shaking her head Buffy gave him a pitying look. "You know, I told you not to judge a book by its cover," she said to him in hammed up disappointment. Suddenly she swung her legs up onto the table revealing that under her robes she wasn't wearing her school uniform, but a pair of tight black leather pants and high heeled boots. Draco stared at the elegant lines of her legs for several seconds before shaking himself out of his daze. He stared at her as she added, "Or a witch by her clothes." He swallowed and staggered off to the Slytherin table, completely unused to clothes so revealing or the practiced nonchalance with which Buffy wore them.  
  
She waited a moment before taking her feet off the table with the same gymnastic grace as before. "Well, hopefully that'll keep him off my case for a while," she said.  
  
Hermione looked positively scandalised. "Why aren't you in uniform?" she asked. She glanced at the boys for support, but their brains appeared to still be melted from Buffy's display. She turned back to the other girl and looked asksance at her.  
  
Buffy rolled her eyes at the boys and replied, "Well, we're not in class and since this is essentially leisure time I figured I'd wear the robes to fit in and my clothes for comfort."  
  
"Those can't possibly be comfortable," Hermione said still looking a tad stunned.  
  
Harry and Ron had finally started to reel their tongues back into their heads when Buffy said, "I wear 'em pretty often, so they're fairly well- worn." At that statement the two were lost. Luckily the Sorting Ceremony began and the table was distracted by the arrival of the new first years. When that was over the conversations centred on helping the first years cope with their first meal at the school and asking Buffy to tell them absolutely everything about herself.  
  
"When'd you meet Malfoy?"  
  
"Where are you from?"  
  
"Why aren't you going to a school in America?"  
  
"When were you Sorted?"  
  
"What's your favourite subject?"  
  
"Do you have a boyfriend?"  
  
The last one came from a redhead at the end of the table who was promptly smacked by his neighbour, who hissed, "Seamus!"  
  
Buffy laughed and said, "How about you try taking turns asking me stuff so I can actually answer questions?" There was some shuffling around the table in response to that. "So why don't you start at the far end of the table there," she pointed, "And everybody gets to ask a question going down the length of the table and back up again on the other side."  
  
This was agreed upon and Buffy patiently answered everbody's questions. "I ran into Malfoy in Diagon Alley when I was picking up my school stuff. He accused me of being a muggle because of how I dress and tried to curse me. I got out of the way and the curse landed on some guy behind me." She frowned. "It think it was his father." This tale brought whoops of joy from the table.  
  
Ron told her, "You are my hero forever."  
  
Most of the other questions were fairly mundane inquiries into the habits and preferences of the newest seventh-year. The final question came up again when Seamus asked, "Do you have a boyfriend?" for the second time.  
  
Buffy's lips tightened into a thin line and said, "I do but . . ." she trailed off and bit her lip. "I would really rather not talk about him right now." The sudden seriousness with which Buffy spoke settled the table down slightly but soon they were back to their usual boisterousness. The rest of the feast returned to more normal topics such as who was going to win the Quidditch tournament that year, which house was going to win the house cup that year and the latest item of gossip, Hermione and Ron's continuing coupledom.  
  
Finally the party broke up for the evening and Buffy followed her housemates back to the tower. They had strewn themselves out around the common room by the time Buffy returned with her laptop and its batteries. She settled onto a couch, to be joined a moment later by Ron. "What's that?" he asked, jerking his head at the computer as it booted up.  
  
"It's a laptop computer," Buffy told him. "My mother gave it to me as a guilt gift for sending me away to a boarding school." She frowned and moved the mouse pointer to the email icon and opened the program.  
  
Hermione came up and stared. "But. . ." she sputtered. "But electronics don't work on Hogwarts grounds!" She stared accusitorily at Buffy. "You're using an illegally magicked muggle artifact!"  
  
"So not!" Buffy replied. "See, the electircal things don't work here is because of all the extra magic which does this weird screw-up thing." She looked up at the other girl, "I just invented a spell to deal with that."  
  
Stunned, Hermione gaped at her, "What sort of spell?" she finally asked.  
  
"It's like an anti-magic field," Buffy replied. "I can take it down and put it up, but no magic can affect whatever it's cast on."  
  
Ron looked properly sceptical as he pointed at the computer and aimed a transfiguration spell at the computer. Nothing happened and everyone stared. Buffy grinned at them and put the computer in the currently empty fireplace and aimed a jet of magical fire at it. When she let the flames die down the room was stunned to see the computer thoroughly unharmed. "Whoah," said someone in the back.  
  
Buffy shrugged. "I mean, if you like, levitated a brick over it and then dropped it it would still crush the computer, but that's 'cause-"  
  
"You wouldn't be using magic to damage the computer, but gravity," Hermione put in with a smile. "So you also can't levitate or affect the computer itself, but you could levitate something underneath it or call the bag it was in."  
  
The girls shared a moment of regard, "Exactly," said Buffy.  
  
"But what do you need a computer for?" Ron asked curiously.  
  
Buffy plonked back down on the couch and began to fuss with her laptop again. "Well, since nearly all of my friends are muggles, they wouldn't react all that well to mail by owl, and it lets me stay in contact with my mother who is the muggles' muggle."  
  
"Muggles' Muggle?" asked Harry.  
  
A sigh escaped the blonde girl's lips as she said, "It's like when she sees anything to do with magic she either doesn't see that it happened or she rationalises it away." Buffy shrugged. "It's one of the reasons my parents divorced. Dad couldn't take living with someone who didn't acknowledge his being a wizard." She turned back to her computer and read from Willow that while things were pretty much normal in Sunnydale it wasn't anything they couldn't handle. Her friend had also written that neither she nor Giles had found anything to explain Buffy's dreams or that they could use to check on Angel.  
  
Looking up, she noticed the easy camaraderie between the other members of Gryffindor house. Her eyes filled with tears as she felt a sudden surge of homesickness, Angel-missage and worry for her boyfriend. She muttered a quick excuse and hurried up to the girls' dorms for a chance to cry in peace. Within moments she had turned on her CD player and was listening to Sarah Maclachlan's mournful voice as she quietly cried into her pillow.  
  
"Are you alright?" she heard Hermione ask, and felt the other girl's weight settle onto the bed.  
  
Years of practice had her sitting up, using the bedclothes to subtly dry her face and facing Hermione with a smile on her face. "Sure!" she said perkily, "Why wouldn't I be fine?" The other girl just looked at her in blatant disbelief. Buffy wilted a little under that even regard. "Well I am fine." When the other didn't move Buffy finally crumpled. "It's just hard. I miss my friends and my boyfriend and just . . . home. Y'know?"  
  
A nod from Hermione and a gentle hand on her shoulder told Buffy the other girl understood what she was saying. Then the witch left to get ready for bed. That night, as with the last two, Buffy woke up partway through the night, gasping in terror and echoes of someone else's pain. She climbed out the window and went for a run through the forest. It eased her nerves and she ran across a couple vampires to ease her feelings more. She climbed back up over the castle rooftops and made the jump back to the tower window. She didn't notice Hermione watching her as she climbed in, changed and went back to bed.  
  
**********************  
  
Classes began the next morning with Potions and Slytherin. As they sat down in the dungeon classroom Harry murmered, "Why exactly do we have Potions with Slytherin every damned year?"  
  
"As our price for being the great Harry Potter's house?" Ron replied smirking.  
  
Buffy and Hermione simply rolled their eyes and settled into their seats. Moments later Snape swept into the room and an audible gulp circled round the desks as student tensed in apprehension. All except Buffy who simply leaned back and picked her binder out of her bag and clicked open her mechanical pencil. Suddenly all eyes were on Buffy and Snape asked, "What is that Miss Summers?"  
  
"It's called a pencil Professor Snape. I use them when I'm taking notes in class," Buffy told him calmly. A whisper went around the room again as the rest of the class was amazed by her audacity.  
  
The teacher's eyebrow went up. "Is there some reason quill and parchment is not good enough for you?"  
  
"Is there some reason I can't take notes on lined paper in a binder which will keep all my notes in order using a means that won't blot or spill and that I can erase if I make a mistake while writing down without having to pull out my wand for every mistake?" Buffy challenged him.  
  
The whole class held their breath waiting for the inevitable explosion and loss of house points. Instead Snape did the unthinkable and laughed. Harry felt shocky. This girl in Gryffindor had stood up to Snape and not been slapped down. They hadn't lost any points yet and Snape, most unbelievably, was laughing. He glanced at the other students and noticed that they looked as shocked as he felt. The professor finally stopped laughing and nodded at Buffy. "Excellent point Miss Summers. As long as your notes are complete enough to allow you to succeed in my classroom I see no reason for you not to use your muggle implements. I do, however, expect you to hand in your work in the same format as the rest of the students. Now-" and he turned back to the front as he began the day's lecture.  
  
Finally they were set to work on a potion and Ron had the chance to ask the question that had been burning in the minds of the rest of the class. "How did you know he wouldn't kill you when you pulled out that muggle stuff?" he asked.  
  
"Because he's a teacher and Dumbledore trusts him," Buffy replied. "I've got better things to be scared of than a crummy Snidely Whiplash ripoff." Then she dropped the final ingredient into her ice potion. It spat for a moment then turned a pale shade of blue. Buffy sighed with relief. "Thank god that worked."  
  
Snape appeared behind her. "We will see Miss Summers. Why don't you dip a flower from the vase at the front of the room into your concoction?" He gestured to his desk where a vase of daisies sat.  
  
"Daisies?" Buffy said with a smirk on her way to the front. "How mundane." She grinned at the teacher and watched her fellow students look petrified. Buffy pulled her wand out and transformed the flower into a spray of deadly nightshade then dipped it into the potion. It came out a perfect ice sculpture of the flowers. They promptly started to melt and Buffy frowned at them. She reached over to the open cupboard and snagged a sprig of mint, dropped it into the potion and redipped her flower. She smiled at Snape and pinned it to her hair.  
  
He raised an eyebrow at her ingenuity and said, "Excellent work Miss Summers. Ten points to Gryffindor." A gasp swept around the room. A Gryffindor had just achieved the impossible, points awarded to the house from Snape. Then he turned around and impartially glared around the room. "If the rest of you can do nearly as well as Miss Summers I will be very impressed." He started to the front of the room, glanced around and added, "Oh yes, five points deducted from Gryffindor for showing off."  
  
The rest of the day was significantly less eventful, but at lunch Buffy was deluged by students from every house demanding to know how she had bewitched Snape and if she could teach them how to do it as well. Buffy just rolled her eyes. "What is with you people? He's just a teacher. He's not going to like, kill you or anything."  
  
"But he hates Gryffindors and never gives us any points. Just deducts them. You actually managed to get five points from Snape," Harry said, trying to explain the insanity of it all.  
  
Buffy made a face at him. "So our stupid teacher-invented clique now has five more points than before. So what?"  
  
Hermione and Harry both paused and looked thoughtful at that comment, but Ron felt no compunction about waving his hands wildly as he squawked, "So the house cup is really important and I want to win!"  
  
"Why?"  
  
Ron blinked at her. "Why what?"  
  
"Why is it so important that you win this competition? It pits you against some perfectly nice people in the other houses, it means that everybody is punished if one person is a screw-up and everyone in a house is rewarded even if they're all bastards just because one person in that house is good at collecting points." The blonde looked at him inquiringly clearly waiting for a reply.  
  
Ron struggled for a moment then said, "Well it's like real life y'know? One person goes down and everybody goes down with them."  
  
Her eyes suddenly looked far older than they had a right to be and Ron looked at Harry who sometimes looked just the same. "When it come down to it, no friends, no family, all you've got is you," Buffy told him softly.  
  
"And when does it come down to that?" Ron demanded. He felt uncomfortable, but had to ask.  
  
"Every time," Harry and Buffy whispered in unison, their voices carrying despite the din in the hall.  
  
TBC... 


	5. Explanations

Disclaimer: See part one for details.  
  
Notes: So here's at least one of the scenes many of you have been waiting for. Also, there's the answer to a question a lot of you asked. I could have come up with more 'alone' examples but, quite frankly, if I were to start listing everything it would turn into a summary of Buffy episodes. And since we're, most of us, fans enough to know what happened I'm not going to waste everyone's time by rehashing in detail the whole first two seasons. Yes, I borrowed from the '92 movie as well. It was just too good to pass up. Any complaints? Leave a review.  
  
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The months settled into routine. Classes went on with the students baffled about why Buffy couldn't seem to cope with her house leader, but was so friendly with Snape and Buffy went out hunting every night, came back and had nightmares of Angel being tortured. Hermione took to waiting for Buffy to come back into the girls' dormitory through a window she shouldn't have been able to get in through without a broomstick. Finally one afternoon she caught the blonde between classes, meals and everything else and dragged her into an empty classroom. "Where are you going every night?"  
  
"What?" Buffy asked.  
  
Hermione frowned. "You know very well what I'm talking about, now start explaining why I shouldn't simply hand you over to Professor McGonagall for breaking the rules." She stood, arms folded, waiting for Buffy's response. Before the Slayer could even try to explain, Harry and Ginny Weasly came through the door into the classroom, groping each other. Hermione cleared her throat three times before the pair against the wall even noticed her. "Would you two mind doing that somewhere else?"  
  
"How about you two find somewhere else to do what you're doing?" Harry replied, "This was Ginny's and my spot first." The three girls just stared at him, rolled their eyes and waited. "What?" he finally asked. Then he frowned himself and said, "What *are* the two of you doing in here anyway?"  
  
A sigh escaped from Hermione's lips. "I was trying to find out why and how Buffy is climbing out of the Gryffindor tower in the middle of the night." She glared at the couple and was again interrupted by Ron bursting through the door.  
  
"Harry! Ginny! I know you're . . ." he trailed off as he saw the group now gathered in the classroom. "What's going on?"  
  
Turning away, Buffy headed for the door and freedom. "Well, since I'm not really sure anymore I'll just catch you guys later-"  
  
"Not so fast," Hermione said and grabbed Buffy's arm. "You wake up crying from nightmares every night and lie about it constantly, you're always out and I think you've been going into the forbidden forest every night and you are going to tell me why or so help me-"  
  
"I'm hunting demons."  
  
A silence filled the room with that remark. Finally Ron came up with something to say in response. "You're what?"  
  
Buffy looked at each of them, her normally lighthearted demeanor gone and said, "I'll tell you everything, but only if you promise not to tell anyone." She fixed her gaze on the four facing her. "That means absolutely no one. Not Dumbledore, not Hagrid, not even Aragog even though he and I have an agreement."  
  
"You have an agreement with Aragog?" Harry asked incredulously. "He's a big spider! What possible agreement could you have with him?"  
  
Calmly she replied, "He and his buddies don't snack on anyone while I'm around or attack me, and I let them live." Her voice was absolutely deadly, and even Ron seemed to understand that she wasn't merely threatening, she was speaking fact. She was *letting* the giant spiders live. Which suggested she could stop letting at any time. The notion floored the group. Another lengthy quiet spell later and Buffy asked, "Do I have your word you won't tell anyone?"  
  
"Will you kill us if we do?" Harry asked quietly.  
  
She sighed. "No. I don't kill people. But you would be making my life unnecessarily hard if you try explaining it to anyone. You also run the risk of letting Voldemort," Ron, Ginny and Hermione all cringed and Buffy rolled her eyes turning to them. "Oh please. You people are like, phobic or something! 'He-who-must-not-be-named' ooooooo," she said and waved her hands in a parody of spookiness. "It's a name. A stupid name at that. Get. Over. It. It's not going to make him appear out of thin air." Now exasperated she tilted her head, "Where was I?"  
  
"Letting Voldemort something," Harry replied easily, sparking another round of cringing from his friends and girlfriend. "She's right you know," he added absentmindedly when Ron shook his fist.  
  
"Thanks," Buffy replied. "If you tell people Voldemort," She turned to the others, "Stop it," she turned back to facing the bunch as a whole, "Might find out about resources other than the ones in the wizarding world and then we're really in for it." She watched as that sank into their heads and waited.  
  
Finally Hermione spoke. "How about if we reserve the right to tell someone should it become important to do so, such as if someone were in danger from us not telling another person."  
  
"Cool," Buffy tilted her head in agreement.  
  
A practically vibrating Ron blurted, "So what's this about demon hunting?"  
  
Buffy gestured at the desks. "Why don't you guys sit down. This could take a while and I certainly don't want to stand the whole time." She sat down and waited for the others to do so as well. Once they were all settled she began her explanation. "Okay, millions of years ago, there were like, demons everywhere. Earth was their home and humans were pretty much just the prime snack food. Well eventually something sucked most of the demons out of this world and into an alternate universe. You could call them God, the Powers that Be, whatever. The point is, whatever it was, was powerful enough to get rid of the demons and stuff.  
  
"Unfortunately, some of those demons wound up stuck here, and another one of them managed to create the first demon vampire before it got sucked away." At that point Hermione started to speak, but Buffy shushed her. "Just a sec Hermione. Can you let me finish explaining before you ask?" The other girl nodded and Buffy thought for a moment before picking up the thread of her explanation. "So anyways, these demons were still stronger than most humans and normal ones didn't have any effective way to defend themselves. So the Powers decided that they would pick a girl to be the Slayer. This girl would be given super-strength, reflexes, speed, an increased healing rate and all kinds of stuff so that she could fight the demons on even turf."  
  
Eyebrow raised in skepticism, Ginny said, "And you think you're this Slayer girl."  
  
Smiling, Buffy took out a stake. "Hermione, would you confirm that there are no spells of any kind on this thing?" She tossed it to the witch who took out her wand and waved over the stake several times muttering.  
  
Finally she looked up and asked, "I assume you're trying to prove something here?"  
  
"Yes," the Slayer replied. "Could you transmogrify that into a steel bar? Something really thick and strong." She waited while Hermione finished the transformation and then took it back. "Okay, now check me over. Do any test you want to be sure I'm not hiding anything magical on me, that I'm not doing a spell or drunk a potion."  
  
Again, the other witch started waving and muttering, until finally Ron couldn't stand it any more. "Is there some reason you're doing all this?" he demanded impatiently.  
  
Harry, Hermione and Ginny all rolled their eyes at the question. "Ron, she just said that the Slayer person has all these superpowers. She wants to show us that she's actually got them instead of having drunk a potion or something to make her superhuman," Ginny told her brother with a superior smirk. "Honestly. What would you have said if she'd just, I don't know, bent that bar in two . . . like . . . that." She trailed off as Buffy indeed took the steel and easily bent it until the two ends met.  
  
"You had to have done a strength spell!" Ron shouted.  
  
Harry blinked at his friend. "Uh Ron? The whole point of that bit where she was asking Hermione to check everything was to prove that she hadn't." He wrapped an arm around Ginny. "Your sister just explained that."  
  
Eyes narrowing Ron glared at his friend. "And when did you and Ginny become so chummy anyway?" he demanded suspiciously. "If I didn't know better I'd think . . . You *are* dating!" he shouted, then lunged at Harry. "You gerroff my sister you!"  
  
Hermione gaped at him "Ron honestly!" She lunged at him in turn trying, and failing, to restrain him. Ginny's efforts at holding Ron off Harry were hampered by her efforts to protect her boyfriend as well as hold him off of her brother. The whole mess came to an abrupt halt as the two combatants found themselves forcibly pulled apart, their feet dangling in midair as Buffy held them off the floor. Ginny and Hermione exchanged looks while Ron made a curious squeaking sound.  
  
"Okay, that's enough," Buffy said calmly. "Ron, Harry is your friend right?"  
  
The two stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded, until Buffy shook the redhead slightly. "Yeah," Ron squeaked again.  
  
"And you like Harry right?"  
  
An affirmative squeak emerged.  
  
"And you trust Harry with your life right?"  
  
Another 'yes' squeak.  
  
"So exactly why is it that you object to him dating your sister?"  
  
Ron's mouth opened and shut but no sound emerged. Finally Harry spoke. "Umm. Could you put us down?"  
  
Buffy shrugged and let the pair down. Then she turned back to Ron. "You still haven't answered my question."  
  
"I . . . well . . . just . . . I don't like it!" he said emphatically. The others just looked at him until he wilted. "Alright. Fine. But if you hurt her Harry-" Ron started.  
  
Harry interrupted. "I know Ron," he told the other boy, "You'll call your mother and there'll be seven wizards with muggle shotguns after me."  
  
"Now that we've sorted that out," Hermione's voice oozed annoyance, "Might we get back to the real issue?" she glared around impartially, "That Buffy is some sort of bizarre dragonslayer?"  
  
A small cough emerged from the blonde's throat. "Vampire Slayer."  
  
"Right, vampire slayer," Hermione accepted the correction. "What exactly does that mean?"  
  
Buffy sighed. "Man I wish Giles was here. He's way better at this than me." She shook her head as she spoke and flopped into a chair.  
  
"What does your high school librarian have to do with anything?" Harry asked curiously. It was an odd choice.  
  
"He's my Watcher," Buffy replied. That got her several blank stares and the other four opened their mouths, no doubt to ask her what a watcher was. "Okay." She held up her hands to ask for silence. "How about you give me a minute to explain this stuff and you guys hold your questions again until I'm done?" she asked. They nodded in response and Buffy explained it all. She told them about how there was a second world of the arcane unknown to the wizarding world, about how the demonic vampires she killed nightly and watchers came about and about her calling since she'd become the Slayer.  
  
By the time she'd finished her audience was stunned and silent. Ron spoke first. "You died?" he asked.  
  
She shrugged. "Well, since another slayer was called after the whole 'prophecy foretelling my death' thing I would have to say . . . yep."  
  
"So even though the prophecy came true it didn't turn out the way it sounded like it was supposed to," Harry said musingly. "Do you suppose . . . " He trailed off and looked at his friends for support. Hermione seemed the only one who had caught on to his idea and she smiled.  
  
But before she could reply Buffy, ignorant of parts of the subtext, responded. "Well the Master said that prophecies are tricky things." She tilted her head at him. "I think there's sort of a . . . mouldability to the things. Y'know, foreknowledge of the future can change the future and all that stuff." Suddenly Buffy's eyes narrowed. "There's more here isn't there?" she asked.  
  
"What do you mean?" Ron asked her looking confused.  
  
"I mean," she said laying great stress on the words, "That there's a prophecy about Harry, isn't there?" The others exchanged looks. "Oh please. It's completely obvious from the way Harry and Hermione were acting that something's up."  
  
The others stared at each other in a silent conference. Finally those looks settled on Harry clearly leaving the decision of whether or not to tell Buffy about the prophecy up to him. He glanced around at his two best friends and his girlfriend one last time before gazing at the Slayer again. She simply stood there, waiting for him to tell her or not. He had come to trust her over the past month, the story she had told was convincing and he desperately wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that there was someone else out there who had a ridiculously difficult destiny thrust upon them by uncaring fates. Someone who understood what it was like to do so many terrifying and impossible things with barely a word of thanks from anyone and to do it all without ever having a chance at a peaceful, happy and productive life.  
  
He made his choice when he looked into her eyes. There he saw a girl forced to go out every night and kill creatures that were once human, once her friends. Forced to fight and struggle with no hope of rest or an end and to do so while the world around her went on unaware of her sacrifices and punished her for her violations of rules that should never have applied to her. He saw someone like him, who found herself facing things down alone because she was the only one who could. Lothos, Luke, the Master and so many other demons and monsters that, although she had help, she had to face them alone. He knew how that felt. After the trials to get to the Philosophers' Stone he was left to face Quirrel alone, after all his friends' help he had to face the basilisk alone and he had never felt more alone than facing off with Voldemort after Cedric was murdered by death eaters.  
  
The same guilt he felt for Sirius and Cedric's deaths was reflected in Buffy's face for all the deaths she couldn't stop. Mostly though, it was that knowledge that there was no one else to do what they did and that no one could ever truly understand what it was like to face down something far more powerful than themselves and know that there was no one coming to the rescue. Harry could see himself in her. It decided him.  
  
"Months before I was born, Trelawney had a real vision. She told Dumbledore a prophecy that turned out to be about me." Harry paused, his mind flying back to his fifth year when he was finally told about it. "She said that either I had to kill Voldemort, or he had to kill me, but one of us had to die at the hand of the other." He nearly smiled in relief as he saw Buffy begin to contemplate his story. There was none of the pity he saw from his friends, just a simple understanding of how he felt. Terrified of dying, terrified of failure, determined to stop this evil at any cost all mixed in with a desire to be left out of it and not have to hurt anyone.  
  
"Do you have a copy of the prophecy?" she asked finally. "I can't make any guarantees, but maybe if you look at the wording you'll get some hints about other ways it could go."  
  
Hermione's response was prompt. Her eyes slitted half-closed in concentration she began to recite from memory. "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches . . . born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies . . . and the Dark Lord will mark him his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not . . . and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives . . . the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies . . ." Her eyes opened fully again and she noticed the slack-jawed stares of the others. "What?"  
  
"You said that by memory," Ginny said. "How did you memorise that?"  
  
Hermione just shrugged and turned to Buffy who said, "Whoa. I mean that was almost completely comprehensible. No speaking in tongues, no 'five hundred years after the fourth invasion of the city of whatever the origins of the situation at hand will cause a mystical upheaval one thousand years from then.'" At the funny looks she got from the others she said, "Giles usually has to spend like, days doing calculations in the library to figure out how to match the Aztec Calendar to the Julian, and how that matches to the Gregorian and then back again before he can even start to figure out what the hell happened when. Like I said, this is almost straightforward."  
  
Finally exploding Ron snapped, "So can you help Harry or not!?"  
  
"It's not that simple Ron," Buffy said gently. "I will do what I can to help Harry, but the fact is, no one ever really knows exactly what a prophecy means until after it's already gone down." She laid a hand on the redhead's shoulder. "I know it's hard, but all anyone can do is take things one day at a time and be ready for the worst while hoping for the best."  
  
"So nothing then."  
  
Sighing, she fixed her gaze on him. Ron blinked as he saw the pain and grief that she normally kept well-hidden. With a start he realised that he had come to be used to that expression on Harry's face. It was so much like the way Harry got every time Voldemort came up in conversation, or death eaters, or any number of other topics, that Ron blinked expecting her eyes to suddenly turn green and her hair black. Then she spoke and he felt even worse than when she was just looking at him. "I will do everything in my power to protect Harry. It's my duty as the Slayer, as his friend and as a human being. I can help you search for alternate meanings to the prophecy and help you try to make them come true. I can't ultimately guarantee anything about anything but the stuff that I personally control. And that means basically me." Ron let his eyes fall away and he mumbled an apology. She squeezed his shoulder briefly before letting her hand fall away. "It's okay," she said. "And I'll do everything I can to make sure Harry comes through," she promised.  
  
After a moment of quiet, Ginny spoke up. "So . . . um . . . From that prophecy, is there a chance it could mean something else?"  
  
"Sure," Buffy's mood snapped to a fully businesslike exterior startling the others. "For starters, that whole death thing could turn out to be a metaphorical death. Y'know, kind of a 'live life to the fullest' thing." She frowned. "I've had it pointed out to me repeatedly by many people that living and survival are very different things."  
  
The startlement on Hermione's face had faded almost immediately as Buffy became businesslike and her mind began to examine the various angles and meanings to the prophecy. "What about the part where he has 'a power the Dark Lord knows not'?" Hermione inquired. Her face had a concentrated look on it as her mind sorted through repercussions. "Do we have any clue what this power is?"  
  
"Love or friendship I think," Harry said. When the others just looked at him he expanded. "Dumbledore mentioned something like that when we went to . . . " he paused and cleared his throat, "Save Sirius."  
  
"But what exactly does that mean?" Buffy said when the respectful quiet stretched too long. "Does it mean that your love of someone or something will be enough to beat Voldemort? I mean, there's the whole pragmatic thing that people would be following you into a fight because they cared about you and your cause so they wouldn't take off if things started to go the bad guy's way. I mean, just because he's got an idea doesn't mean he knows everything." Harry, Ron and Ginny looked completely stunned at the notion of Dumbledore not knowing everything. The discussion continued until they were forced to head for their next class.  
  
************************  
  
Miles away Voldemort's followers finally tired of the sport Angel provided them and hauled the nearly catatonic vampire into the nearby woods. One of the masked figures hurled the killing curse at him. Angel slumped to the ground and the death eaters left him for dead, laughing as they walked off. Minutes before dawn he roused from his stupor and staggered toward a nearby cave to hide from the sun. He spent the day there, shivering in confusion and fear as his tormented mind struggled to make sense of where and what he was.  
  
When the sun set he knew only one thing. Somewhere to the northeast of where he was something called him. The feral vampire sniffed the air and set off at a lope toward that call. Something in his dimmed memories told him that feeling meant safety, home and his mate.  
  
Buffy woke up with her usual gasp of shock, this time purely from habit. Her dreams had been confused and filled with images of darkness, but there was no pain in these. There was only a constant pull toward something. She quietly dressed and went to the window, pausing as she stared into the night. Buffy hoped that the dream meant Angel was safe and well, but ultimately she was still unsettled by the images. The soft sound of Hermione and Ginny coming to stand behind her pulled Buffy from her thoughts. "Are you going out hunting?" Ginny asked in a whisper.  
  
Turning back to the girls Buffy smiled a little. "Yeah. I really need to get out there tonight." She glanced out at the darkness of the forest. "Things have been getting a little hairy out there-"  
  
"You can't sleep, can you?" Hermione interrupted.  
  
A shoulder hitched up in a minimal shrug. "That too," Buffy replied. "I'll be back in a while." Before the other two could protest she slipped out the window and dropped to the roof below and took off at a run. The other two exchanged glances and watched as the Slayer took a ten metre drop as though it was nothing then run further to do the same thing again. She vanished from sight only to reappear at a distance, vanishing into the darkness of the forest.  
  
"Should we go after her?" Ginny asked.  
  
Hermione looked at her for a moment, then replied. "I don't think so. For one thing, she's been doing it for months and she's still fine." The frizzy- haired witch glanced back into the dormitory room. "For another, we don't know what we're getting into at all and I'd prefer to have some more answers before we go traipsing after her." Ginny frowned slightly, but she nodded and the pair went back to bed.  
  
TBC... 


	6. A Minor Skirmish

Disclaimer: See part one for details.  
  
Notes: Okay, so I totally forgot that the muggle shotgun line was borrowed from somewhere else. I don't remember the author but I figured I had better reassure anyone who reads it and recognises it from that other story (that I honestly remember neither title nor author of) that I know it's from elsewhere. So there's that disclaimer. I'm sorry about any delays but life has a way of creeping up on you and telling you there's no way you'll get to write any more *ever*. As to the theory about Dumbledore, that's my personal theory about how he seems to know absolutely everything that goes on at Hogwarts. If you have any complaints or questions leave a review and I'll try to get to them.  
  
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The next evening Harry and Ron were both sincerely disgusted with their respective girlfriends over their decision not to alert them and follow Buffy into the forest. "I can't believe you didn't tell us! I can't believe you didn't follow her! I can't believe-" Ron ranted.  
  
"I can't believe you actually believe we could have caught up with her in the forest," Hermione replied tartly.  
  
Frowning Harry said, "That's not the point. She could get hurt, badly, and since she won't tell anyone about it we'd be the only ones who were able to help her." He spoke sternly to the girls who looked over his shoulder with pointed expressions. "What?"  
  
"*She's* right here Potter," Buffy said with an amused smile. "Am I to assume that you're worried I'm going to get killed going up against something in that forest?"  
  
"Yes," replied Ron belligerently.  
  
The Slayer sighed. "Guys. Unlike you people, I'm already fully trained to do this and I'm the best there is at what I do." She pinned the boys with a look when they seemed about to protest. Hermione and Ginny simply shrugged. "This isn't like when Harry's had to go up against Voldemort, stop it you three," she directed to the wincing others. "I was given special abilities and I've been training for this sort of thing for a couple years now. That's why I get the fancy title and stuff."  
  
Ginny responded. "We were wondering what really happens when you're out hunting."  
  
The tactful response incited Harry. "We want to help," he told her definitely. "We-" At Hermione's stern look he sighed and corrected himself. "I was worried about you."  
  
"You want to go on patrol with me," Buffy said flatly.  
  
Ron glanced at Hermione for help but she simply shrugged, forcing him to speak for himself. "It's just that you're . . . er . . ." He trailed off, uncertain of how to avoid dealing with monsters again but unwilling to leave Buffy without backup.  
  
Looking around Harry realised he was going to have to take matters into his own hands. "You need someone to watch your back." He gazed at her sternly. It was a look honed by years of battles against Voldemort and was both a goad onward and a reprimand. Ron, Hermione and Ginny all reacted in spite of the fact that the look wasn't aimed at them by straightening up and firming their stances. Buffy was another matter. She leveled her I-am-the- Slayer-don't-even-think-about-messing-with-me glare right back at Harry. He didn't waver under the assault but stiffened and met her stare for stare.  
  
The others watched in silence. Finally, Buffy's eyes narrowed and her head tilted in acquiescence. "I'll set up an anti-magic spell on the flashlights I brought and you guys can come. But," and she fixed them with the death glare she used to terrify vampires causing them all to wilt slightly, "You will do what I tell you, no arguing. Got it?"  
  
"Yes," said Ginny and Hermione. Ron looked like a stunned bunny and Harry just nodded in satisfaction. A thought occurred to Ginny suddenly. "Why aren't we simply going to use our wands?" she asked.  
  
A soft chuckle erupted from Buffy's throat. "How do you think Dumbledore knows everything that goes on in this school?" she replied.  
  
"He keeps track of all the spells cast on school grounds," Hermione said slowly. "That would explain it. He doesn't even have to know exactly what spells were used, just some of the general characteristics and the rest he can determine through deduction." Her eyes were wide as she looked over at the powerful wizard on the dais.  
  
Which was when Ron brought up an important point. "How are we going to get out if we need to use Harry's cloak to get out?" He turned to Buffy. "After all, not everyone can hop off of castle towers and not be killed." That silenced the whole group for a while and they ate as they contemplated the dilemma Ron had brought to their attention.  
  
Ginny came up with the solution their way to potions class. "We need a ladder or some rope. Maybe Buffy could talk to that acromantula and get some webbing tonight. Then tomorrow we'll go out together."  
  
**************  
  
They cheerfully walked into DADA the next afternoon. It was their last class that day and then they would be free to make plans for their jaunt into the forest. Their latest professor smiled at them, then announced a surprise practical quiz. Within moments the classroom was full of pixies, boggarts and dozens of other creatures that doubly confused the class because the boggarts kept shapeshifting. The professor stood to the side, warding off whatever came her way and keeping the students from being injured.  
  
However, so many years under constant threat had taught the Hogwarts students how to survive in worse situations than that. Within minutes the classroom was down to a single boggart. That was when the class took a sudden turn. Buffy turned around to see a bloody and battered Angel stagger over to her, flames bursting along his pale skin where the sun touched it and the scent of charred flesh filled the air. "It's your fault," he gasped to her raising an accusing hand to point at her. Buffy's mind went into a tailspin and she couldn't even bring to mind the words of a single spell.  
  
He was suddenly consumed by the fire causing Buffy to release a scream of agony and reach for him. Even as he turned to ash before her another form took his place. Willow, sweet innocent Willow bruised and battered as Angel was, her head hanging at an unnatural angle, stood before Buffy her face ashen. As she took a step toward her friend the redhead's eyes snapped open and it became clear she was a zombie. Two words emerged from her crushed throat. "Your fault," she ground out.  
  
Shifting again the boggart took on the form of a vampire. He was wearing a tweed jacket and he smiled cheerfully at Buffy. "My dear girl. If you had been there to protect me I would never have known this glory." He lunged at her and the two began to fight. Buffy was crying as she fought her watcher to a standstill. As she brought the stake down he grinned at her with a mouth full of fangs and whispered, "It's all your fault," then vanished as Hermione, Ginny and Harry grabbed Buffy and dragged her away.  
  
"Ron! Get the boggart!" Harry shouted.  
  
Ron stared at him. "Why me?" he demanded.  
  
Hermione and Ginny were cuddling Buffy as they hurried her out the door, but Ginny took a moment to say, "Because Hermy and I are helping Buffy and the class doesn't need a dementor running around in here after that and that's what we'll get if Harry tries." She shot a glare at her brother as they hustled Buffy out the classroom door.  
  
Blinking, the last of the group realised that Ginny was right and started to force the giant spider to go away. "Riddikulus!" he shouted and watched in satisfaction as the boggart disappeared with a pop. Then he ran off to join his friends, leaving the poor professor to clean up the chaos left behind. He arrived in the Gryffindor common room in time to see Buffy pull herself back under control. Plopping down next to the girls and shooting a glance over at Harry who was looking grim and pale by the fireplace, he asked, "Buffy? You alright?"  
  
A hiccup emerged from her throat, then Buffy took a deep breath and replied, "I'm okay now guys. Thanks." She looked a little shaky, but since she seemed to have recovered they took her at her word.  
  
"Who were they?" Harry asked. Hermione and Ginny both glared at him and he tried to tone down the question. "I mean-"  
  
"Giles, Willow, Angel," she replied softly. Her eyes were unfocussed, staring into space. "So many people have died because of me. Because I brought all that slayer stuff with me or because I failed." Tears began to appear in her eyes. "I'm so terrified sometimes that I'll go back and they'll all be dead because I wasn't there to protect them. And Angel . . ." Silence permeated the room. She'd told them about him. About how much they loved each other, about her nightmares that he was being tortured and how she had no way of knowing where he was because he'd left Sunnydale so many months before to move the Judge's arm to a safe location.  
  
"He's fine," Ginny said to her. She dropped to her knees in front of the distraught Slayer and forced Buffy to focus. "He is fine, and you will see him soon. Don't start looking for trouble. Remember how we told you what happened to Harry in his Fifth year?" They all winced at the reminder of Sirius' death, but the words helped to ease some of the tension and Buffy managed a weak smile.  
  
"Thanks," she told them. "Look. Why don't we go to dinner and tonight we'll take a look around to see what's in the forest. Okay?" Buffy looked around at the group she was privately calling the Harryettes and grinned at their enthusiasm when there was a series of eager nods. After everyone was settled for the night Buffy, Hermione and Ginny crept up to the boys' area and met Ron and Harry and the group proceeded to make their way to the forest.  
  
Or, at least, begin to make their way to the forest. "Ow! Harry! You just stepped on my hand!"  
  
"Well if you weren't so slow Ron-"  
  
"Slow! You're the one who can't seem to realise we could fall to our deaths at any minute!"  
  
"Shut up both of you. I'm not particularly interested in hearing about our imminent deaths."  
  
"Imminent? That's it, I'm climbing back up-"  
  
"No you're not because you'd have to climb over me and I don't want you climbing over me."  
  
Buffy spoke up from her position at the bottom of the rope ladder. "If you guys just climbed down instead of arguing the whole way we could probably all be on the roof by now."  
  
"She's got a point."  
  
"Be quiet Ginny."  
  
"Besides, we still have to get down to ground level."  
  
"Thanks a bunch Herm. I really needed to be reminded of that."  
  
"Well, if I ever need to write a comedy sketch I've got all the dialogue right here," Buffy said.  
  
Muttering grumbles drifted down to her from those on the ladder until, one by one, they finally joined her on the roof. "Now what?" Ron asked.  
  
"We still have to get down to ground level before we go into the forest," replied the Slayer as she led the way to the next climb. A series of groans followed her, then the teenagers followed their groans. Finally they were on the ground and four waited while Ron happily knelt and kissed the ground next to the castle wall. "You finished makin' out with the grass Ron?" Buffy asked with a grin.  
  
He hastily straightened up and Buffy handed around the flashlights, stakes, holy water and crosses. Then she held out a sword. "Here Harry. You've used a sword before so I think this'll be more comfortable for you." He took it and gave a couple quick swings before letting his arm fall to his side. "Ron, Ginny, Hermione, I don't trust you guys with the pointy sharp weapons since none of you have any experience with them." She reached into a gap in the wall and pulled out three quarterstaves. "Here. The worst you guys'll be able to do is give someone some broken bones with these, but you'll have weapons."  
  
Buffy showed Ron and Ginny how to work the flashlights, "Torches," Harry put in, then they followed the Slayer into the woods. For the first fifteen minutes nothing happened and finally Harry asked hesitantly, "Um . . . is it just a slow night or is it like this a lot?"  
  
Grinning, Buffy turned around. "Willow had a perfect quote to describe patrolling, 'Total boredom punctuated by moments of utter terror,'" she said. "That's what happens. You see," she explained, "I can't do anything but either look for vampires and demons, or wait for them to do something within earshot. If they're not around, nothing happens."  
  
"Then why do you go out every night?" Ginny asked.  
  
"Because the one night I don't go out could be the one night the vamps totally massacre the town or something." A shrug followed as Buffy easily avoided a series of roots that tripped the others. "The problem is that the demons don't usually give me their social calendars to let me know what to work around."  
  
Hermione spoke up. "Why don't you have a torch?"  
  
Another grin. "Does it look like I need one? I have to chase vampires down, sometimes with no preparation at all and I have to fight them in the dark. If I couldn't handle myself in the dark I'd be a pretty lousy slayer." Buffy demonstrated this night vision by catching Ginny's careless swing of her quarterstaff before it knocked Harry out.  
  
Several minutes went by until Ron snarled in annoyance, "Why do we need these stupid staffs anyways?"  
  
It was one of those moments that give a person the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the usefulness of something. In this case, the quarterstaves. A vampire, wielding a staff himself, vaulted down out of the trees and Buffy snatched Ron's staff up and blocked the oncoming blow from hitting Hermione. She slipped beneath the vampire's guard with a roundhouse kick, and just barely stopped his retaliatory blow with her staff. They traded blows for another couple minutes, the staves whirling through the air with deadly accuracy and speed, slayer and vampire each just barely blocking the other's strikes.  
  
In one smooth motion Buffy dropped into a crouch and swung the staff around, knocking the vampire's feet out from under him. Before he could recover she'd dropped the staff and pulled out a stake as she dove across the clearing to plunge it through his heart. She spun around and hurled the stake through the air between Ron and Ginny to land in the chest of another vampire that had been sneaking up on the group. The audience of four stared in shock as the two vampires exploded into ashes before their eyes. With a slightly eerie simultaneity they all turned to look at Buffy still crouched on the ground. "What?" she asked nonchalantly. "Oh yeah, thanks for this," she said and tossed the staff back to Ron as she stood.  
  
"Wow," said Ginny.  
  
"Seconded," Hermione added. "Could you possibly . . ." she looked slightly uncertain.  
  
Harry picked up her thought. "Could you teach us how to do that?" he asked.  
  
"Sure," Buffy replied. "At least I can try. I mean, there are some things I do that I can only do 'cause I'm the Slayer you know." The others nodded and pelted her with questions for the rest of the patrol. They made their way back inside and went to bed.  
  
********************************  
  
He growled, low and completely feral, as he pounced on the terrified deer. Drawing its blood out in great gulps he felt some more of his strength return and he turned again towards the feeling that beckoned. He had not seen any of the robed men that had caused him pain since leaving the wood where they had dumped him, but he could still sometimes scent them nearby. When he did he hid from them. It rankled, hiding from those creatures, but a small remnant of his former self knew that to face them was to invite more torment. Worse, they would keep him from the thing that called to him. And he knew he had to reach it.  
  
Although he still flinched from contact with the sun, he had learned that he had no reason to fear it. Still, he traveled only by night and kept to the shadows during the day as he slept, dreaming of a tiny blonde female that was both his hunter and his prey and who was his mate. He woke up every evening with the only word he knew on his lips. "Buffy."  
  
"Angel."  
  
"Buffy wake up. You're going to be late for breakfast," Hermione said as she shook her friend awake.  
  
TBC... 


	7. New Arrivals

Disclaimer: See part one for details.  
  
Notes: I'm sorry this took so long, but my muse seems to have died a horrible horrible death. I honestly don't know when I'll get the next part up. My thanks to all those who have had so much patience in waiting for this next part and my deepest apologies for the delays. The rating has gone up in this next part to a hard R/ NC-17. Just so you're warned. I've also put a warning in before things get really hem, gory. As always, send me a review if you have any comments you feel really need addressing. Now without further ado, heeeeere's Angel!  
  
*******************  
  
Buffy asked Hermione about places she could teach fighting in. The prefect didn't even have to think about it as she replied, "The Room of Requirement."  
  
"The what?" asked Buffy.  
  
Ron had come up behind them and said, "It's this room that becomes whatever you need it to be when you go in." He grinned, enjoying being one of the people in the know for a change, and added, "My older brothers Fred and George needed a hiding spot once, and when they went in it was just a broom closet. But when we needed a DADA classroom for Harry to teach defense in it became the perfect dark arts classroom."  
  
Pursing her lips a little, Buffy had to admit that was impressive. "So we can check that out this evening." It was agreed, but Harry, Ron and Hermione all insisted that they use Harry's invisibility cloak. "I have just one thing to say," Buffy muttered as they made their way down the hall, "If I feel anyone's hands in any bad places, that person loses a hand."  
  
"Absolutely," Ginny said and smacked a hand travelling too low for her comfort. There was a muffled exclamation from Harry.  
  
They were trotting down the hall when a light appeared under the door of the great hall and caught the students' attention. "What's going on in there?" Buffy asked.  
  
"I don't know," replied Harry, "Hermione?"  
  
"I don't know either," she replied.  
  
Ron sounded resigned to his fate as he asked, "Are we going in?"  
  
Harry's grin was completely audible. "Of course."  
  
"Of course," murmured his three henchmen. Then they turned around and made their way to the door. "Is there some way we could go in without using highly visible portal sized doors?" Buffy inquired. The others shushed her and pulled her to the statue on the right side of the door and tapped lightly on its shield muttering something. It promptly swung open revealing a passage. They crept inside and followed it until they reached a door that opened behind one of the hall's tapestries.  
  
Hagrid's voice was the first thing they heard. "I found 'im in th' forest," he was saying. "'E attacked me an' then tried ta run."  
  
"But what is he?" asked McGonagall.  
  
Snape sounded strained as he said, "More to the point, what did this to him?"  
  
Dumbledore looked very serious as they managed to get into a position to see the action. "You think this was caused by Voldemort?" he asked the potions professor, ignoring the gasps of the others. Under the cloak Buffy and Harry shared rolled eyes at the response then refocused on the discussion.  
  
"You know I do," replied Snape. "Unfortunately I don't think there is anything we can do for him."  
  
Madam Pomfrey spoke up then. "I have to say I agree with Severus. There does not appear to be a single thing I could do to assist him even if I could get close enough." She demonstrated her point by stepping in the direction of a cage on the floor. The students were in a very bad position behind the table and couldn't see inside. But when Pomfrey stepped up to the bars, they heard a loud snarl and the whole cage shook as though something inside had thrown itself violently against the walls of its prison. Buffy looked at Harry and inclined her head to the left. He frowned, then followed that direction down the darkened length of the hall to the shifting shadows at the far end of the hall.  
  
She gestured again with her head and Harry understood. She was going to make her way along without the cloak separately from the others to get a better look. He nodded back again and Buffy pulled up the cloak and vanished into the dark instantly. "Hey!" hissed Ron softly.  
  
"Don't worry," whispered Harry.  
  
Hermione's glare could be felt even though Harry's back was turned. "Why not? Where's she gone?"  
  
"She getting a better look," Harry whispered back.  
  
"She'll get caught," objected Ginny.  
  
"Can you see her?" he asked and pointed the direction Buffy went. The others had to admit that the moment she'd left the protection of the cloak she had disappeared into the shadows as though she were one of them. They turned their attention back to the conversation between the teachers.  
  
"-Hate to do this," Dumbledore said, "But it seems the only thing we can do." They saw the professors raising their wands to cast a fatal spell on whatever was trapped in the cage.  
  
Buffy had quietly circled her way around the room until she was in a position to see what was in the cage. As she reached a place in the shadows, half hidden by the tables she looked at the pale, shivering thing in the cage. It looked from that angle as though it might have been human and Buffy felt sympathy for it. Of course it might be a vampire but there was something familiar about him. As the professors raised their wands, about to kill him, he shifted and Buffy saw a tattoo on his right shoulder of a Gryphon straddling a letter 'A'. "NO!"  
  
She ran forward, covering the distance between them in a blur and threw herself in front of the cage. She reached a trembling arm through the bars toward her boyfriend. He snarled and was about to throw himself at her when he paused. His head tilted and he sniffed the air. Their eyes locked and he crept over to her to sniff her hand. Recognition dawned on his face and Buffy gently caressed his face. Angel leaned into her hand looking blissful. The moment was over when Snape demanded, "What in Merlin's name is going on here?"  
  
Immediately Angel jerked away from Buffy and growled at the man. Buffy ignored him and moved to open the cage door. "What are you doing?" Professor McGonagall demanded as she grabbed Buffy and pulled her away. Angel's reaction was immediate. He began to hurl himself against the sides of the cage in a desperate effort to reach his mate.  
  
"I was letting my boyfriend out of that cage," Buffy replied, annoyed. "What the hell happened to him?" she demanded as she returned to Angel's side. He calmed down when she cuddled him through the bars.  
  
Hagrid spoke up, "'E was like this when I found 'im." He shrugged and continued. "Tried to attack some o' the creatures as lives in the woods."  
  
"Well he isn't going to attack anyone unless you upset him," Buffy said with a sidelong look at the silent teachers, several of whom still looked ready to hex Angel at a moment's notice. Then she reached over and tapped the lock with her wand. "Alohamora," she said briskly. The door swung open and Angel cautiously stepped out a moment later and immediately glued himself to her side, nuzzling her hair. There was a lengthy pause during which everyone seemed to be waiting for someone to make a move and even Dumbledore appeared uncertain.  
  
After five minutes of standoff Buffy sighed and simply led Angel off in the direction of the Room of Requirement figuring it would give her whatever she needed to take care of Angel until he was back to normal. "Miss Summers!" called Snape.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Where are you taking the . . . your . . . er him?" he asked her.  
  
Buffy shrugged. "I thought the Room of Requirement would probably be best. I really don't think you have the facilities needed for him elsewhere."  
  
Snape nodded approvingly as she competently herded Angel out of the hall and McGonagall stuttered at her impudence. She turned to the Slytherin House leader demanding, "How can you possibly approve?"  
  
He rolled his eyes. "She's competent which is really more than can be said for Potter or that Weasley boy and Granger simply hasn't that sort of self- possession." He smiled. "I appreciate competence."  
  
************************  
  
Angel followed the small blonde out of the hall and away from the people in robes with the wood sticks that he knew could cause pain. One of the robed people in particular had smelled like the ones who had hurt him before and he was glad to escape. He stepped in close to the blonde female and happily sniffed her again. She smelled like safety and home and other things that made his whole body tingle in anticipation. Suddenly he frowned as another scent reached his nose. Woven in among the myriad aromas that made up the essence that was unique to her were traces of four other people. Two of those people were male and Angel did not like that at all.  
  
"Angel!" she hissed as he pulled her to a stop and began to examine her in earnest. There had been two males in close contact with his mate and Angel became even more irritated when the people the four scents came from suddenly appeared in the hallway with them. He growled and prepared to kill these interlopers. A stinging pain brought him to a halt as Buffy smacked him and said, "Angel, they're my friends. Stay." The words meant nothing but the tone of voice and the fact that a few words from her sent them trotting off reassured Angel that he did not need to battle for his mate. A couple minutes later he was being pulled into a spacious room with large windows covered in iron bars and heavy red velvet curtains. The floors and walls were covered in golden sienna padding, the carpets and tapestries in warm reds and browns. A large mattress covered with sheets, cushions, pillows and blankets of crimson satin and silk glowed in the corner, a chest-of-drawers and wardrobe made of black oak and shelves of heavy leather-bound books finished the room. A door on the opposite side of the room opened onto a lovely tiled washroom complete with a separate shower stall, bathtub with heated massaging water jets and a full array of male toiletries, towels, washcloths and anything else that could possibly be needed.  
  
Buffy watched as Angel explored the room, examining the closets full of silk, satin, velvet and leather clothing as well as the less flashy cotton jeans and t-shirts, staring in bafflement at the washroom facilities and finally coming to rest on the mattress with an expectant air. She slowly approached him, intending to get him to take a shower or a bath. He abruptly lunged forward and pulled her down beside him onto the bed and began eagerly nuzzling at her and growling irritably when he couldn't find out how to get her clothes out of his way. Then he realised that the rags he still wore after all the torment he'd undergone were also constricting his movements and he tore at them until they gave way. Angel discovered that his little blonde had vanished into the other room and he followed her in, anxious.  
  
Buffy waited in the washroom as the tub filled with water. Angel's eagerness wasn't lost on her and she took several breaths to calm herself as she rapidly peeled off her clothes, knowing that any bath with Angel at the moment was going to get her soaked. He appeared in the doorway and his eyes lit up when he saw she wasn't wearing anything. Buffy dodged his hands and stepped into the tub. Angel gamely followed her in and hissed when the warm water made the scratches on his legs sting. Buffy was sitting so Angel sat as well and reached for her. He growled again in irritation when she evaded him, then began to purr when her hands began to massage soap onto his shoulders. It felt so good Angel let his eyes slide closed at the pleasant sensations her hands evoked.  
  
After a thorough soaping, rinsing, shampoo and another rinse, Angel was tense again after his repeated attempts to touch and taste his mate were frustrated by how slippery the soapy water made her. Finally however, as she reached to put the shampoo away, he managed to wrap his arms around her and pull her against him. He rubbed his erection against her and smelled the sweet scent of her skin and the traces of lavender perfume she wore. He sighed happily and nipped at her neck, hearing her breath speed up with his caresses. It was heaven after the horror of the days of torment from before. Although he was aware there was something missing between them, it paled to insignificance before the perfection of the moment.  
  
ENTERING ADULT MATERIAL NOW look for the ~~~~~ to indicate the end of the um . . . stuff.  
  
Suitably startled when her mouth pressed against his, Angel sat still before another memory surfaced. Then he returned her kiss with fervour and slipped his tongue past her lips to tease and taste her. Sometime during the proceedings she had shifted her position on his lap to straddle his legs and Angel discovered his erection was now pressed against her hot, slippery centre. They rocked together for a moment before Buffy broke away, gasping. "Angel," she sighed, pressing her forehead to his. She looked into his eyes and saw all the love and worship she had come to associate with her vampire boyfriend and she felt her apprehension melt away. He was still there, just buried deep beneath whatever tortures he had suffered.  
  
With that reassurance she grasped his manhood and squeezed, enjoying the way his eyes rolled back in pleasure. Then he grabbed her hips and twisted, sliding easily into her. Buffy tensed as pain raced along her nerve endings and her hands moved to clamp onto the sides of the tub. After a few thrusts Angel seemed to realise something was wrong and stopped, whining and nuzzling her to try and determine what had made her upset. His head moving frantically, Angel tried to comfort her even though he had no idea what had happened.  
  
Finally the pain subsided and Buffy became aware of the more pleasurable feelings emanating from where their bodies were joined. Experimentally she shifted her hips and felt a very enjoyable sensation ripple through her. Underneath her Angel hissed and grabbed her hips to stop her, but Buffy gently ground against him again and smiled at her lover encouragingly. He got the message that she was better now and resumed thrusting into her. They bucked together sloshing water all over the floor until suddenly Buffy felt a cool rush inside her and Angel relaxed his chest heaving with unnecessary breath. Buffy whimpered feeling distinctly let down by the ending, and more so as he softened inside her.  
  
She bit her lip and slid a hand down to finish the job. Angel looked on curiously, his eyes widening as she began to moan and rock against her hand. Buffy was startled when his hand joined hers, but she was too far gone to care at that point. "Please," she whispered. Then his fingers, longer and thicker than hers, found their way into her vagina and Buffy threw her head back panting and saying his name. Between the two of them they worked her to orgasm.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
She collapsed onto his chest and rested for a couple minutes before urging him out of the tub. Unwilling to comply since he was quite comfortable where he was, Angel resisted and tugged Buffy back in several times before she finally just eluded his hands and dried off hoping that he would follow her out of the bathroom. She was waiting on the bed with several towels when Angel grouchily emerged and made a beeline for her. Buffy stopped him from climbing onto the bed and firmly dried him off before tugging him into bed and turned the lights off with a word. They fell asleep curled together under the covers.  
  
********************  
  
Hermione carefully poked her head into the Room of Requirement. She was momentarily taken aback by the chains hanging from the padded walls of an otherwise lovely room, but she took it in stride based on Angel's reaction to everyone but Buffy the night before. A moment later she squeaked in surprise as she realised that the entwined figures on the bed were clearly wearing nothing under the covers, and that Angel was staring at her with interest as he began to climb out of the bed. Hermione suddenly realised she was about to get an eyeful she wasn't entirely certain she wanted when Buffy reached out and tugged Angel back under the covers. Angel had begun to growl as Buffy sleepily said, "Morning."  
  
Blinking in utter bemusement and some fear Hermione replied, "Good morning Buffy. I had to ask, are you coming to classes today?" She flushed as she thought of how that might sound to the blonde.  
  
"I don't think I can leave him," replied Buffy. She sighed and pushed Angel back down again. He did not look pleased at being squelched and Hermione edged slightly toward the door. Buffy frowned at her, currently, bestial boyfriend and added, "Could you bring me my assignments and notes from class until I can leave him?"  
  
That drew a small smile from the witch. Harry and Ron would never have asked such a thing. "Of course. I'll take in your homework as well." Angel had apparently decided that Hermione was no threat because he had started to nuzzle Buffy's neck. Hermione flushed bright red and added in a rush, "We'll drop by with your things this afternoon." At that she scurried out the door and faced the three waiting outside for her.  
  
"Well?" Harry asked impatiently. Then he noticed her blush. "Are you all right Herm?"  
  
She just shook herself and said, "I have never been so embarrassed in my life." Then she hurried off refusing to answer any of their questions.  
  
Hermione handed Buffy's work in and collected the homework assignments and notes Buffy would need. When she reached potions however, Hermione felt some trepidation as she walked up to Snape. Before she could say anything he turned around and asked, "Is that Miss Summer's homework?"  
  
"Yes." Proud that her voice hadn't trembled, Hermoine handed the parchment over to the teacher who simply placed it on the desk before turning back to her. "Is there any-"  
  
Snape didn't let her finish. "You may tell Miss Summers that she may make up her class work as soon as she is able." Suddenly his professional facade dropped away and Hermione was faced with the unusual sight of Professor Snape looked deeply concerned about the welfare of one of his Gryffindor students. "How is Miss Summers coping with her . . . old friend?" he asked.  
  
"Er . . . She seems to be alright professor," replied the dumbfounded student.  
  
Not seeming to notice her shock Snape continued. "Good. If she needs anything at all she may come to me." Then he turned to the class at large and sneered at Harry. "Good day to you Mr. Potter. Shall we see how well you all manage without Miss Summers to assist?" He then proceeded to teach a lesson the way he always did, by finding any way possible to take points away from Gryffindor and, most importantly apparently, to harass Harry in any way possible.  
  
After dinner Hermione made her way to the Room of Requirement to see how Buffy was doing and give her the homework, assignments and notes for the day. When she walked in Buffy was reading to Angel as he lay with his head in her lap. He was purring and Hermione was reminded of a large cat of some kind, like a panther or a tiger. He glanced up at her for a moment, then recognised her and settled back down. As she handed over the homework assignments to Buffy, the Slayer stopped reading and smiled. "Thanks," she said. "How did everyone take my being missing?"  
  
"Easily enough I suppose," Hermione replied and sat down across from the pair on the mattress. She glanced around noticing the room was a complete wreck as compared to that morning with the cushions and books scattered everywhere. "Although I still have to wonder what hold you have over Snape that he seems completely alright with your absence."  
  
Shrugging, Buffy lifted her hands up in the universal sign of 'I dunno'. "I have no idea really," she told the other witch. "I mean, maybe it's 'cause I challenge him instead of giving in and worrying about my grades all the time." She snorted. "After all, if you don't really care too much about your marks beyond not doing really badly, like I do . . . don't . . . uh . . . you know what I mean." Buffy trailed off in mild confusion.  
  
"Ron and Harry don't seem to particularly care either," responded Hermione with a slight frown.  
  
A sigh escaped Buffy. "Well yeah, but Harry's factor is that Snape hates him for some reason that has nothing to do with schoolwork, school or anything Harry's done, and Ron is Harry's friend."  
  
"Which is enough to prejudice Snape without Ron and Harry's ever doing anything at all in class good or bad," Hermione finished the thought and sighed herself. She glanced at Angel who was starting to appear a little bit restless and asked, "Any particular reason you were reading to him just now?"  
  
"Hunh? Oh!" The blonde smiled sappily down at the handsome man next to her. "I noticed that my voice calms him down and stuff, but I'm also hoping that reading to him will help his memory come back." She slid a hand into Angel's hair and began to stroke gently. He surprised both girls by speaking.  
  
"Read . . ." There was a pause as he searched his memory for the next word, none when he spoke her name. "More? Buffy?" His voice seemed to be hoarse from overuse followed by prolonged disuse  
  
Her eyes misted over slightly as Buffy replied, "Sure Angel. But I'd like to introduce you to my friend." She gestured Hermione closer. "This is Hermione Angel." The vast improvement over the previous day was clear and Hermione was more than happy to provide this next step.  
  
"Pleased to meet you," said the witch and she smiled at him. Angel looked her up and down for a moment, frowning. Then he smiled back. Although he didn't say anything Hermione got the distinct impression that he had both acknowledged and understood the introduction. A moment later he sent a pleading look to Buffy who grinned again and acquiesced, continuing in the book she had been reading. Hermione stayed for a couple minutes, keeping the pair company, then left to update Ron, Harry and Ginny on the situation and get her homework and studying done. As she left Hermione heard Buffy begin another poem.  
  
//Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!  
  
Unlike our uses and our destinies.  
  
Our ministering two angels look surprise  
  
On one another, as they strike athwart  
  
Their wings in passing.// (Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Sonnets From the Portuguese III)  
  
She hurried away to Gryffindor tower where the other three were waiting for news.  
  
TBC ... 


	8. Conversations

Disclaimers etc. in the first part.  
  
AN: Okay, so I haven't updated in so long many of you think I have now abandoned this. In point of fact I have not. I simply managed to lose about fifteen pages and I am now ever so slowly reconstructing those pages from memory. However, it seemed that since I now have something almost long enough to call a post completed I had better post it. So, here it is, my apologies for the delay and more apologies that this isn't more exciting. Thank you to all those who took time to review and even more thanks to you for never pointing out the no doubt vast numbers of canon-related errors in my fic. I love you all. Ice cream for everyone!  
  
Yeah. On with the fic.

* * *

The week crawled by ever so slowly for the Gryffindors, their teachers and the Slayer and her vampire. Buffy's only visitor was Hermione, bringing her the days assignments, notes, readings and gossip. Angel didn't speak again, causing Buffy's concern to rise a couple notches from where it had fallen. Refusal to talk only meant that he was more damaged, emotionally or physically, than she had thought after his request that she read more. Having tried everything she could think of to get a response from her boyfriend the Slayer was at her wits' end. She had spoken to him of their time together in Sunnydale, everything from his past that she knew, stories and gossip about her Slayerettes, the wizarding world, Hogwarts, Harry Potter The-Boy-Who-Lived and his friends, her schoolwork, she read Hermione's notes, her textbooks, assignments, the collection of books in the room, a loaned copy of "Quidditch Through the Ages" and poked, prodded and harassed him.  
  
None of it did any good. He was affectionate, devoted, anxious when she left the room and frequently hyperactive. It was like living with someone who had been possessed by the spirit of an animal like Xander was in grade ten. Only instead of being like a mad hyena Angel was like an extremely affectionate, if slightly afraid of abandonement, dog. One of those big dogs that think they're actually the size of a scotty. Not once did he speak another word.  
  
Daily visits from Hermione were Buffy's only connection to the rest of the world. While she would update Hermione, and therefore Ron, Harry and Ginny as well, Hermione would tell her about class, their assignments, help her with the practical work and give her the day's news and fresh changes of clothes. By the end of the week both girls were very worried about Angel, Buffy wondering how long it would take him to recover, Hermione wondering if he would recover at all. That afternoon, following her usual visit to see the couple the brown-haired witch arrived back at the Gryffindor common room to the expectant looks of her friends.  
  
"Anything?" Harry asked.  
  
Shaking her head, Hermione replied, "Nothing. I just wish there were some way to reach him. Not to mention that Buffy deserves a break. After all, there's only so much she can do about her grades if she can't do the practicals."  
  
Rolling his eyes, Ron retorted, "Oh yeah. Great reason to take a break 'Mione, school. Fantastic break."  
  
"A change is as good as a rest you know," replied the witch with a superior sniff.  
  
As her brother drew breath to retort, Ginny cut him off in an attempt to put off the inevitable fight between him and Hermione. "Be that as it may, we still need to figure out how to help her and Angel. Maybe if he saw some new faces-"she began.  
  
"No!"  
  
"Absolutely not." Harry and Ron spoke at the same time. It was a week old argument dating back to the first time the idea had come up right after Buffy and Angel's seclusion.  
  
"He attacked me 'n Harry and there's no telling what he'd do to you." Ron stated firmly. "I, for one, am not going to get attacked by a snarling nutcase with fangs." With an emphatic nod he glared at his sister. Harry's response was a slightly less patronising pleading look and determined nod, but he agreed nonetheless.  
  
Hermione's response was also part of this now well-choreographed routine. "So it's alright for me to face off with 'a snarling nutcase with fangs'?" she inquired. "One who, might I add, is the much beloved boyfriend of a friend of ours?"  
  
Ron stuttered. "Well . . . see . . . it's . . . you're . . . er . . . different," he managed.  
  
"How?" demanded Ginny.  
  
Now it was Harry's turn. "Look. I'll go tomorrow and-"  
  
"No!" the other three shouted at him. He looked hurt.  
  
Sighing, Hermione rose to the occasion as the Voice of Logic once more. "Harry. Angel attacked you and Ron that day in the hall. That's why you two haven't been going. We don't know what set him off, and until we do there is no way we can risk sending you in." Hermione responded to the obvious objection her friend was about to make. "It's not that anyone thinks you're a coward or anything else like that Harry," she said firmly, "It's just that there's no reason to go rushing headlong into danger right now."  
  
"Which still leaves why I'm not allowed to go," Ginny mentioned.  
  
Ron exploded, "'Cause he just sorta sniffed the air and then launched himself at me and Harry that day and he might've been coming for you next!"  
  
"Hermione-"Ginny started, but she was cut off by the aforementioned witch's wide-eyed look of concentration. An expression very familiar to those involved in the conversation, it signified that she was having one of her impressively frequent moments of intellectual epiphany.  
  
"Sniff. That's it!" she shouted suddenly. "Ron, you're a genius!"  
  
"He is?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Eh?"  
  
"Don't you see?" Hermione demanded.  
  
Ron actually replied to the rhetorical question. "No."  
  
She shot him an irritated glare. "Buffy told us that the demonic vampires have a very enhanced sense of smell. Angel is currently working with a very primitive mindset. Animalistic even. He no doubt identified her partly by her scent and probably considers her his mate." Her boyfriend opened his mouth again, but Ginny beat him to it and cast a silencing spell on him. Hermione spared her a grateful smile. "Because of his state of mind, when he saw you two he must have also smelled Buffy's scent on you and believed you to be a threat to his claim on his mate."  
  
Ginny smiled happily at her friend. "Y'know what that means?" she asked her brother and boyfriend triumphantly. "That means there's no reason for me not to spend time with Buffy and Angel."  
  
Predictably Ron freaked. "What do you mean 'spend time with Buffy and Angel'!" he squawked.  
  
"By 'spend time with Buffy and Angel' I mean to be in the same immediate area as Buffy and Angel, for a significant amount of time for the purposes of providing companionship," replied his sister with some asperity.  
  
"But . . . but . . ." Ron sputtered.  
  
"You sound like an outboard motor Ron," Hermione told him with a grin. He glared at her.  
  
Harry in the meantime had pulled Ginny slightly to the side. "Are you sure?" he asked. She was about to snap at him for being overprotective, but the concerned look in his deep green eyes made her pause before yelling at him and his next words dissolved her anger even further. "I'm not trying to be overprotective but Idon't want you going into a dangerous situation when you don't have to. Rescue missions are one thing but you don't have to do this," he told her.  
  
She sighed. It wasn't the most eloquent explanation but she understood. More than that, she heard the other unspoken message that, if anything happened he would go to her and the others for help. He was just being Harry. "Yes I'm sure. And I do have to do this. Buffy needs to do her schoolwork and maybe if Angel interacts with more people he'll start talking again and stuff."  
  
Ron was now muffled firmly by several well-cast hexes by Hermione and could only fume as Harry said, "Fine. But promise me you'll run like hell for help if 'stuff' becomes dangerous."  
  
An eyeroll followed. "Yes dad."  
  
When a wicked smirk crossed Harry's face, Hermione petrified her boyfriend and quickly hauled him away hearing, "Now Ginny, I don't think you should mistake me for your father," followed by a surprised squeak before the protrait swung shut behind them.

* * *

Saturday morning Hermione and Ginny took their first shift alone with Angel while Buffy went to make up the practical work from the classes she'd missed. Angel came wandering into the room after a half an hour looking concerned and slightly confused and becoming a little alarmed when he didn't locate Buffy. Finally turning to the two girls he asked, "Where is Buffy?"  
  
"She had to go out for a while," Hermione told him in a soothing voice. Inwardly delighted at this evidence that he wasn't a lost cause she added, "Buffy has to make up some work for her classes."  
  
The response was slightly less encouraging. "Where is Buffy?" He didn't seem to understand the words just spoken to him. Indeed neither of the girls could be entirely certain he would understand anything they said. Ginny tried to simplify the concept.  
  
"Buffy will be back soon. She's fine. We're just here until she comes back." He frowned, seemingly processing her words for several seconds until he abruptly nodded decisively and graacefully sprawled out onto the chesterfield.  
  
Silently the girls stared at each other, wondering what to do next. The problem was solved by Angel looking at them curiosly then asking hesitantly, "You . . . have . . . been . . ." he paused, frowning.  
  
An encouraging smile crossed Hermione's lips. "Yes?" she prodded gently.  
  
"We . . ." exasperation covered Angel's face and it was evident his lessened vocabulary bothered him. Something seemed to occur to him and it came out normally. "We've met before, haven't we?" he asked Ginny. She looked slightly startled at his reversion to fairly standard English for a moment before responding with a slightly wry smile.  
  
"The first night you were here," she replied. "You attacked Ron and Harry. I don't think you were really aware of what you were doing."  
  
For a long couple moments the girls wondered if this relatively abstract collection of concepts was too complicated for Angel's currently malfunctioning mind, but after the pause he nodded in understanding before frowning again. "Harry and Ron." Again he paused. "One is like . . ." he trailed off again, searching for the words that were on the tip of his toungue.  
  
Hermione came to his rescue. "Boys," she stated. "One with hair like," she reached over and gently tugged on Ginny's bright locks, "Ginny's, that's Ron. The other has black hair. Harry." They looked at Angel expectantly.  
  
He tilted his head a little. "Ron," he said. "He's your . . ."  
  
"Brother," Ginny supplied. "Hermione and him are together and Harry and me are together." She paused, unsure if her meaning would be fully clear to the vampire. In spite of his attention, neither could help but feel that until he was speaking normally, they couldn't trust that he would fully comprehend the conversation around him. A sudden inspiration had her add for clarification, "Like you and Buffy."  
  
As Angel's eyebrow rose in a look of sceptical interest, Ginny and Hermione wondered if there had been a miscommunication of some kind. Then he leaned forward and his nostrils flared as he took a delicate sniff. "Not exactly like," he replied, a small but breathtakingly sexy smile flitting across his face.  
  
Flushing Ginny muttered, "No, not exactly like that." While Hermione looked confused. She shot a questioning look at Ginny who refused to meet her eye. A smirk from Angel followed by a very pointed look tracing the area around her hips had Hermione letting out a startled "Oh!" followed by a blush that outdid Ginny's.  
  
The conversation that followed was somewhat stilted, frequently stalled and was slow in the extreme. However the difference between Angel's previous state and his current one was made obvious by Buffy's squeals of delight at her boyfriend's improvement when she returned from her makeup tests and classes. The other two girls smiled at each other and left.

* * *

While Hermione and Ginny were having a stilted chat with Angel in the Room of Requirement, Buffy was taking her makeup tests and practicals. Transfiguration was first and that went fairly smoothly although Buffy's time away from the classroom had affected her skills slightly and the lack of practice showed. In potions however, she simply plonked down and mixed away. Snape sat at the front of the classroom sometimes glancing up at her as he pretended to read a text on the qualities of Far Eastern herbs and the subtitutions possible with Western ones.  
  
Finally Buffy was in the last stages of her assigned potion, an elixer designed to temporarily improve the user's memory. It had to be left to simmer for several minutes before the last ingredients were added. Passing the time until she could wrap up her work by flipping through her text in search of a good potion to use on the ice demon she'd run across on her way down to the dungeons, Buffy was startled out of her ruminations (explode the demon or go for the more conventional melting option?). Snape had abruptly slammed the book he was pretending to read shut and had asked, "Miss Summers. I was wondering about the state of your . . . ah . . ." he trailed off uncertainly.  
  
"Angel is much better," she told him with a small smile. "He hasn't started talking again really, but he's better."  
  
It was with a great deal of hesitancy that he asked his next question. "Have you any notion of what changed him?" he inquired.  
  
She sighed. "I wish I knew. He's not talking so I can't find out that way and the only magical evidence of what was done are some small traces that might be the cruciatus." A shrug and an expression that was both sad and exasperated crossed her face.  
  
"But even transfigurative spells leave significant traces and given the alterations to his physiology-"Snape was cut off by Buffy's laughter. At his irritated glare she controlled herself and explained.  
  
"Angel wasn't human to begin with. The physiological differences between himself and a regular human are because he isn't one." The teacher's expression immediately cleared, then it turned thoughtful as he considered the repercussions of her statement. He was also extremely relieved to discover that there would not be an army of crazed mutated former wizards running around under Voldemort's control. That is, at least Angel wasn't the forerunner to such an invasion.  
  
Another couple minutes passed during which Buffy reached the conclusion that it had been far too long since she had last gotten to blow anything up and so she was going to explode the ice demon. Then she was going to add some of the Weasley Wizarding Wheezes Quick Swamp Mix to the leftover puddle and see how the Hufflepuffs handled getting out of their common room.  
  
Clarifying, Snape asked, "So . . . Angel . . . is somewhat like a veela in the sense that he has two forms, one which is more human and one that is less?" He raised an eyebrow, noting that her book was open to a potion formula that was particularly explosive. He also noted that she bookmarked the page with a slip of paper that read 'Hufflepuffs'. He decided not to ask. The little fluffballs deserved whatever they got.  
  
"Mmm. A little. In that way. He really only gets with the ridges and fangs and things when he's really upset." She grinned at her teacher. "All of his seductive abilities are completely unrelated to magic." He did not deign to respond to that and there were several minutes of silence as Buffy made various adjustments to her potion and settled down for the last bit of brewing. Some minutes had passed before she turned to Snape and asked a question that had been bothering her for some time. "Why exactly is it that you hate Harry so much? I know you hate Gryffindors on principle and I don't blame you. We seem to be a fairly irritating bunch, but you really take it all out on Harry."  
  
Snarling slightly the teacher responded, "It is his unmitigated arrogance and gall. The way he is constantly talking back to me acts without a thought in his head for anything save his fame and those irritating friends of his as well as the way he takes after that bullying man that was his father."  
  
"Ah," Buffy said noncommitally, her face smooth.  
  
Temper flaring up at the pacifying nature of his current favourite student's response he nearly growled. "Ah? I see. You are about to tell me that Potter is none of those things I say and that he is the paragon everyone else claims him to be. The-"  
  
"I said no such thing and I'd appreciate it if you didn't go around assuming stuff about me. I get that enough back home and you know what they say, assmue makes an ass out of you and me." Her voice was flippant but eyes that would not be cowed by the fury of a former death eater no matter the situation stared cooly back at him.  
  
Her response stopped him. "What do you mean you get enough assumptions back home?"  
  
Certain now that she had Snape's attention, Buffy grabbed a chair and sat down facing him across his desk. She leaned forward a little as though to emphasise her point. "I'm a blonde girl from southern California. I care more about my clothes than lots of other things and I am in a lot of ways the definition of a valley girl. Everyone thinks I'm stupid because of it. They see the hair, clothes and the way I talk and they think that I don't know anything about anything just because of how I am. They talk down to me and refuse to talk about anything serious with me. Conversation winds up being all about clothes, makeup, movies and pop music." Snape leaned forward slightly himself, interested in where she was going with this. "It's a cycle. They think I can't talk about serious stuff, so they don't talk about it. Then I don't talk about since they're not talking about it which makes them think I can't talk about it even more. And so on and so on."  
  
"People, especially teenagers, usually wind up acting just the way you expect them to when you treat them like they're gonna act that way. Y'know?" She looked at him expectantly. He just blinked at her confused. "Lemme put it another way. Everyone acts like the Slytherins are all evil so that they're all upset with everyone." Buffy paused to make sure he was still following and he gestured at her to continue. "So since they're all pissed off, it just goes to prove that they're evil to everyone else."  
  
"Sad but true." He sat back. This was hardly news to him. He tried very hard to make his house realise they had other options, but they were constantly slotted into that category by the other houses. It was difficult to shake.  
  
He waited a bit as Buffy poured her potion in the mason jar and screwed the lid on, labelling it neatly and cleaning up her work area. As she picked up her book bag she turned to him and said, "Not to say that Harry's perfect 'cause he's really, really not." She paused. "So not." Another slight pause. "But did you ever consider that he talks back to you like that because you insult him more than all the other people in the school combined?"  
  
With that she left him with suddenly rather a lot to consider.

TBC at some point soon. I hope


	9. Bafflement

Disclaimer etc. in part 1.

Notes: Okay, so it's been like, forever since I updated. This is also a lot shorter than my other updates. I have been lazy and ignoring this and I'm a horrible person. Mea maxima culpa. I don't think this will update any faster than before, but hopefully, those who have been going crazy over this story and the lack of updates can have temporary relief. I made up alithiserum, it's base is in Greek rather than Latin, but it means truth serum just the same. As always, if you have any comments or complaints leave a review or email me at scwlcyahoo.ca. Yes, I know the update is short.

* * *

"That's so creepy."

"Stop it."

"I can't. It's creepy. The way he's just sitting there, staring and staring and-"

"Shut up before I make you shut up Harry."

"But 'Mione-"

Buffy smiled at her friends. "Quit before Hermione turns you into something Harry," she advised the boy. "And stop worrying about Snape. You're probably just in his eyeline while he's thinking."

Harry gave her an incredulous look. "Just because he thinks you're the greatest thing since alithiaserum..."

"Why not just veritaserum?" Hermione asked curiously. "Both of them make you tell the truth and veritaserum is far more effective."

A snort emerged from Harry's mouth. "Veritaserum is controlled by the ministry and is illegal to make, whereas alithiaserum is legal and it was invented by a Slytherin." Silence reigned for a few minutes after that as they all took notes from the professor's lecture and Harry found himself under a silencing charm before he could point out that Snape was looking at him with that same creepy considering look again.

Then, in a lull, Buffy asked, "Why truth potions?" Harry and Hermione stared at her for several seconds trying to figure out where the remark had come from. "Normally people say 'the best thing since sliced bread.' I get that you want something different for Snape, but why truth serums specifically?"

Grouchily glaring at Hermione, who was looking at him curiously, Harry didn't speak. His friend finally prompted, "Aren't you going to answer?"

It was that moment that Snape chose to address his question to Harry, "Well, Mr. Potter. Since you appear to already know everything about the classwork, perhaps you can tell me what effect the addition of fwooper feathers would have when combined with the restorative potion we are discussing."

"Given the presence of both the boomslang skin and hen's teeth they will combine to provide an amount of magical energy restoration as well as simple physical energy," Harry replied. As a malicious smirk crossed Snape's face Harry closed his eyes waiting for the blow. It never came. Snape, with a visible effort, seemed to curb his tongue and turned away.

He swept down the aisle to stunned looks from all the NEWT students in his classroom. "What you did not mention Potter, is that such combinations have a nasty tendency to have minor hallucinogenic effects. If taken too frequently, they can eventually cause a permanent dementia. Because of both of these effects and the ease with which fwooper feathers can be acquired, the making of this potion is strictly regulated by the ministry and anyone found with evidence of making this potion, unless he or she is licensed to do so, can be arrested and seriously fined."

"I'm sure you could find a way around those restrictions professor." Cassiepeoia Campbell of Slytherin smiled winningly at the teacher, angling herself slightly so that Snape could see down her strategically unbuttoned blouse from where he stood. An amused snort sounded from Buffy's direction. It quite easily destroyed the other girl's attempt at seduction, not that anyone believed it. Snape, after all, was not the most attractive male in the school and Campbell was certainly not intellectual enough to "appreciate him for his mind" or some such crap along those lines.

A dark look crossed Snape's face, causing those around Buffy to disassociate themselves from her as much as humanly possible. "Do you have something to say Miss Summers?" He inquired silkily, "Or is your opinion of my intellect do low that you believe me incapable of understanding that as well?"

"Please," Buffy said with a roll of her eyes. "Like you believe that I think you're stupid anymore than anyone else in this class thinks you're stupid." Looking mildly baffled as he worked his way through that sentence in order to determine whether or not it was an insult, he remained silent as Buffy continued. "I was just thinking that clearly she doesn't understand that your position as a Potions Master isn't just some teaching thing but gives you the right to brew almost any potion ever invented under the law. You have no need to get around that law the way that Nestor Fairefaxe did in 1893 when he figured out that boiling the boomslang skin in rose water for seventy-two hours in an iron cauldron with a pure platinum bottom."

Snape merely smirked at both girls, Campbell looking extremely pissed Buffy had screwed up her bid to raise her mark, Buffy merely shrugging. As he turned back to continue his lecture, Buffy said, "So?"

"So what?" Harry replied, puzzled.

"So why alithiaserum?" she inquired.

Harry shot her a grouchy look. "If you must know, it's because he's always threatening me with veritaserum."

"Oh Harry!" said Hermione, looking shocked. "You should have said something-"

"Why?" he asked. "If he really meant it he'd've done it already, and since he hasn't, all anyone can say is that it's an empty threat like Ron's threats he's going to pound Malfoy into a bloody pulp."

The brunette witch frowned a little, but didn't say anything more on the subject as Buffy snickered quietly to herself, gaining frowns from the other two. Finally, to break up the little routine of Buffy snickering at the notion of Harry spilling all his secrets to the Potions master under veritaserum and Harry glaring back at her, Hermione inquired, "How do you suppose Ron's coping with Angel?"

* * *

Ron wasn't coping. He was in a staring contest with a vampire and neither seemed likely to break the deadlock. "So . . . er . . . Angel . . . er . . ." he tried again for the fifth time. He also trailed off for the fifth time. It was Angel who broke the moment finally by speaking.

"Why Buffy . . . isn't Buffy . . . here?" he inquired.

It took Ron a moment to determine what Angel was asking before he understood. Then he replied, "She's got class. And before you ask, I didn't get high enough on my OWLs to take potions at the NEWT level."

Several seconds of blank looks and blinking later, Angel finally managed to inquire, "Owls? Newt?"

"Ordinary Wizarding Levels and Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests," the redhead replied. "They're tests that let the teachers know whether we're good enough to take advanced classes in a subject or whether we should just drop the course. Thing is, you need certain NEWTs if you want to even apply for certain jobs and training programmes." Ron's explanation stalled the vampire for several more seconds, but Angel's comprehension was improving by leaps and bounds and it didn't take him long to understand.

He leaned forward, looking interested, and asked Ron, "What courses are you taking?" That spurred Ron into chatting about his transfiguration class, charms, care of magical creatures and defence against the dark arts. That led to the discussion of possible job options and by the time Hermione, Harry, Buffy and Ginny had arrived at the Room of Requirement, Quidditch.

"... But, if you had the beaters set up over there by the goals, then they could score after the chasers ran through the other team's lines there." Angel was saying as the others walked in.

Ron looked positively gleeful. "Hey Harry! What d'you think of this play Angel came up with?"

Several silent seconds passed before Harry walked over and lost himself in discussion of the finer points of Quidditch strategy. Ginny joined them a moment later to toss in the perspective of a chaser and the four became completely oblivious to any other topics.

"Boys!" said Hermione in indignation.

Buffy was smiling at the sight of Angel communicating almost normally with her new friends and it took her moment to catch what Hermione had just said. "And girl," she prompted, indicating Ginny. A harrumph was her response from the frizzy-haired witch. Buffy just laughed and suggested they do their homework so they could mock the others later. Hermione perked up at the idea then fervently denied it was over the opportunity to mock her best friends later.

* * *

Buffy was ecstatic that evening as she allowed Angel to pull her into bed. He didn't seem to truly remember who or what he was, but his personality was shining through. Only time would bring back her boyfriend, but she could see the light at the end of the tunnel now. That and Angel's enthusiastic face as he climbed on top of her, clearly planning to do all sorts of wicked things to her.

"Angel," she said softly. He looked at her inquiringly. He still didn't speak much with her, the bond of love they shared allowing her to understand his wordless commentary. He also didn't need her to speak as the implicit words of love and happiness at his recovery were easy for him to see in her eyes. For a moment, he put his plans on hold just to look at his mate as she lay beneath him.

One word escaped him, carrying with it all the love, worship and need he felt when he so much as thought of her. Buffy understood how he felt because at the animalistic core of her, the part that was more hunter and slayer than human, Buffy also felt that visceral connection to her mate. Soulmates was all very well, but this went deeper than that. It was something that touched a place more of the Earth than the soul. Something primeval. Then they were sinking into the softness of the bed and there was no thought, only feeling.

"Buffy."

* * *

It was the next morning that Hermione walked straight into the Room of Requirement to get Buffy for her last weekend of makeup tests. As she pushed the door open, she was startled to realise that Buffy didn't seem to be up yet. It got worse when she finally looked at the bed and spotted two clearly naked bodies twined together, all the naughty bits covered from her perspective, but very few of them covered by covers. Most were covered by the simple expedient of someone having a hand or leg in an interesting place.

As she watched, stunned into immobility by the sight before her, Angel began to move. Slowly he woke, and Hermione was transfixed as he blinked, stiffened, stared down at the girl lying beside him on the bed saying, "Buffy?" in an incredulous sounding voice.

Squeaking before she could suppress it, Hermione silently cursed her luck and fate when Angel's eyes moved up to look at her in clear bafflement. "I . . . Uh . . . Where am I?" he asked. Hermione felt her eyes widen a little more. There was hesitancy there, but it wasn't the stuttering of before where he was just searching for the words to express himself. He was hesitant because he, like Hermione, had no idea what he should be saying or doing at that moment.

"Angel?" she squeaked. Then she winced because she'd squeaked.

Angel looked even more baffled. "Do . . . I . . . When did we meet?" he inquired. What truly unnerved Hermione was the way he had managed to sound like a true Victorian gentleman, barring the American accent, when he'd spoken. She fled, leaving him alone in the room of requirement.

* * *

"Hermione?" Harry asked as she hurtled down the hallway. She came to a halt and stared at him, slightly wild-eyed. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah 'Mione," Ron added. "You look awful." A moment later, "Ouch! What Ginny?"

The diminutive redhead stared at her brother for a moment. "You are an idiot." She informed him solemnly. "'You look awful' honestly!"

"There's something wrong with Angel again and I've never been so humiliated in my life!" Hermione wailed in response. Her friends just looked at her silently, clearly wondering if the day had finally come that all the stress had gotten to the smartest witch in Hogwarts and she'd snapped.

Ginny came up with a reasonable question, "What's wrong with Angel?"

* * *

What was wrong with Angel was that the last thing he could remember was being in Yorkshire and his annoyance at being diverted there on his way back to Sunnydale. He couldn't remember how he wound up in the room he was in, where he was or, worst of all, how he'd wound up in bed with Buffy, naked, both of them smelling like they'd slept with each other. Not that it was bad that they might have done so, but the fact that he couldn't remember it . . .

Then she was stirring slowly in his arms, stretching, and turning over to look at him with a smile. "Morning," she said. "I really hate to have to go, but I have the rest of those makeup tests to do and the headmaster won't give me much more leeway on them-"Buffy broke off abruptly. "Angel? What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Angel stared at her, feeling a little wild. "I have no idea where we are – clearly not Sunnydale because you're talking about a headmaster – I don't know how we wound up sleeping together, or why I can't remember it or the girl who was just in here. Who was she Buffy? What's going on?"

After a long pause, Buffy asked him, "What do you remember last? The date?"

"August 25th," he replied. "Buffy what's going on?" She looked anxious and happy at the same time.

"August," she said softly, "But you can remember everything before that? You, me, Xander, Willow, Giles?"

Unsure of what was going on, Angel tried to keep things light. "I'm Angel, the vampire, you're Buffy the vampire Slayer, Xander and Willow are your best friends and go to school with you. Willow's a redhead and Xander's an idiot." That got a giggle out of his slayer and Angel felt something in his chest loosen a little. At least things weren't so bad that she couldn't laugh. "Giles is your watcher. Buffy please . . ." He gazed at her pleadingly. Something about the way she'd said August made him worried.

She swallowed. "I don't know everything Angel, but you just appeared here a couple weeks ago and you were . . ." Buffy didn't know how to tell him what had happened but she plunged on anyway. "You . . . you were like an . . . an animal or something." It had to be forced out. The look on his face as she said that told her he was imagining the worst.

"Did I . . . I didn't . . . Buffy tell me I didn't . . ." He couldn't force the words out. They were too ugly. Too horrifying. The notion that he could have done that to her was unbearable.

"No!" Wrapped around him, Buffy set herself to putting his fears to rest. "No. You never did anything to me that I didn't want and agree to. I promise Angel. Nothing bad happened. Not then."

"What do you mean not then?" he asked. "Buffy did I do anything?"

"No," she told him firmly. "What I meant was that you showed up looking like you'd been tortured. The only thing we could think of was that you had suffered some kind of trauma that was making you act like that."

"Who's we? Where are we Buffy? I know this isn't Sunnydale-"

Cutting him off Buffy said, "I'll try to explain Angel." She sat down and patted the bed next to her. "You see, there are witches that are born with really big internal magical batteries. Witches like Amy's mom need to call on gods and stuff to give them the power to do things. Witches like me just need to take the magic we already have and push it out."

"Witch?" was the only thing Angel could say.

"Witch," Buffy confirmed. "The second kind have a sort of sub-society thing. They hide from the rest of the world and a lot of them totally live in the dark ages. They're worse than Giles. I mean quills? Really! It's like they haven't even heard of the ballpoint pen or anything. At least Giles had a phone."

"Witch?" he asked again. Buffy sighed and explained everything to him. About the wizarding world, her father, Hogwarts and magic school. By the time she was finished telling him everything, including the Statute of Secrecy that didn't allow anyone to tell any muggles about magic unless they were immediate family to the witch or wizard in question, he was completely dumbfounded.

One unneeded breath later he gathered himself and looked at her. "So let me get this straight," he said. "You are a witch, but different from all the other witches I've ever met before."

"Yep."

"There's a whole underground society of witches and wizards who are living in the Middle Ages by the technology they use and they have a standardised magical education system."

"Yeah."

"So that girl who was just in here is one of your classmates at this magic school in Scotland which is in a castle."

"Uh-huh."

"Oh," Angel replied faintly. "Glad we have that cleared up."


	10. Concerns

Disclaimer etc. in part 1.

Notes: It's another short update. I know this. I also know that some of you have been waiting on tenterhooks for there to be something more. I owe you all an apology and a really huge update. Unfortunately, I only have what I have for you. More's the pity. Still, I have an offering and I hope it will appease the gods of fanfic. If any of you are still reading, thank you for sticking this out. For those who sent me feedback, thank you for the undeserved ego stroking. Before I let you go to read the story, I feel I should say that Nickle Naks were a real candy. Jelly beans if I'm not mistaken. I found mention of them on a website refuses to let me put up the address for. So there you go. Leave a review or harass me at my email address which can be found in the prologue disclaimer. Thanks to Whitewolf3 for pointing out my mistake. It's just been corrected.

* * *

Buffy had extracted herself from Angel with the hurried explanation that she had to get to her classes. Especially since she was still a little behind. After extracting a promise from her that she would explain everything over again in more detail later Angel let her go.

The moment she vanished out of the room Angel decided to have a look around. Aware that he was in a castle, Angel decided to stay around the interior and explore a little. After all, this was a school. Even if the teachers weren't happy with him wandering around it wasn't like they'd do anything to him. Angel glanced around the room and spotted a chest of drawers. He hurried over and was pleased, although surprised, to discover slacks, sweaters, and everything else in the colours he felt complimented him best and all in the right sizes. He quickly dressed and located the door.

It took much cursing and struggling but Angel finally dragged the door open and stepped into the hall. On the opposite wall there was a tapestry of some nutcase ballet dancing with what appeared to be trolls. Angel stared at in befuddlement and then decided to pass it off as modern art because otherwise his poor brain might have exploded.

Continuing on his way Angel passed several of what appeared to be moving, talking paintings, all of whom stopped once they noticed him and silently watched him pass in a deeply unnerving way. He slipped silently down the corridor until he reached a larger open area. He frowned slightly, then decided to head down one of the staircases in the centre. Just as he reached one it suddenly pulled away, swinging across the intervening space and reconnecting to another landing opposite.

Angel blinked.

This was already unbearably strange for words and he, Angelus the Scourge of Europe, had both dated and apparently slept with the current vampire Slayer. Heck, he'd seen two of them in the same room at the same time. He wondered idly if it was the fact that those other things had the benefit of at least having a sort of ironic humour to them, while this stuff appeared to be thoroughly random, that threw him so much.

He approached a second staircase with some suspicion, but this one remained nicely still. It wasn't until he had reached the bottom, carefully noted the location of the stairs so he could find his way back and turned away that he heard a slight grinding noise behind him. The stairs had just swung away, at the bottom this time, and Angel stared helplessly at the empty space where the staircase had been.

"And who might you be?" Came a smooth voice from behind Angel. "I believe students ought to be in classes, not wandering the halls like. . ."

The man trailed off as Angel turned around. He had heavily oiled hair, similar to the styles worn by men in the '40s and '50s. The difference being that it was long and stringy around the ends, and not the short, tight cuts popular back then. "As you can see," Angel said, "I am not a student."

His head inclined, conceding the point, and the man stepped forward. "My name is Severus Snape. Potions Master of Hogwart's. You must be . . ." he paused, as though searching his memory for something. "Angel." Severus Snape's voice held the same emotions Angel had felt when he'd first met a young woman named Candi.

Smiling slightly, Angel said, "It's short for Angelus."

"A Catholic bell ritual?" inquired the other man. He seemed startled. "I had thought it was some sort of pet name Miss Summers called you by."

Sighing, Angel began the tiresome process of explaining the tale of his renaming. Tiresome mainly because of the sheer number of times he had been forced to do so over the centuries. "When my sire changed me, she renamed me 'Angelus'. It was supposed to be the latinate form of 'angel'. Sort of a sick irony," he told Snape. "When I was human my name was Liam. Liam Shaughnessy."

"When you were human?" Asked Snape in some startlement. "Miss Summers had left me with the impression that you simply were not human." He frowned then, remembering something else. "You said your sire named you, but you also mentioned that it was a woman."

Another moment of exasperation. "I don't invent the terms popularly used. The vampire that changes you into a vampire is your sire. Whether or not they are a woman. I know dam makes more sense," he added hastily to forestall that point.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the point Snape wished to make. "You are a vampire? Impossible!" he exclaimed in sudden disgust. "If you feel the need not to tell me what you are that is your prerogative, but do not lie to me."

Blinking, the man who had been a vampire for the last two hundred odd years was slightly taken aback. "Why is it impossible for me to be a vampire?" he inquired.

The other snorted. "Firstly, every schoolchild knows that vampires cannot be awake during daylight except in extraordinary circumstances. Second, they have fangs. Third, even if you were one of those exceptions that would allow a vampire to be awake in daylight, you would have to be a master vampire and those are some of the vilest creatures I have ever laid eyes on and-"

He was cut off as the Angel interrupted. "What. . . that . . . " he sputtered. Finally getting ahold of himself he said incredulously, "What crappy monster B movies have you been watching? Not even Xander is that ignorant!"

They glared at each other, Angel convinced that this Snape person was either stupid or dangerously misinformed for someone living in the supernatural world, Snape convinced that Angel was a dangerous lunatic playing on the affections of his new favourite student.

* * *

Buffy sat down in her transfiguration class, feeling a tad worried. While it would be nice to be fully back on a normal schedule, the fact that Angel couldn't remember the past several months was a tad worrying. Although all things considered it was preferable to have this amnesiac Angel over the vocabulary-challenged one she'd been dealing with.

Class began with a lecture on conjuring. "As you are all aware, this term we will be studying conjuring both here and in your charms classes with Professor Flitwick. Can anyone tell me why it is this subject is being studied in both classes?"

Hermione's arm shot into the air with the promptness Buffy had come to expect from her friend. Buffy watched, slightly amused by the way McGonagall was desperately searching for someone that wasn't Hermione to answer the question. Finally giving in to the inevitable, the teacher turned to her and said, "Yes Miss Granger?"

"There are two methods of conjuring. One is charm-based, while the other is transfiguratively based. Conjuring in charms is, in fact, the creation of an elaborate illusion that convinces anyone who is in contact with it that the item conjured is real. In fact, it has all the effects of the item recreated, except that it will vanish in twenty-four hours, or less if so specified by the caster. There are means of making them last longer-" She halted her exposition abruptly as her teacher's glare reminded her that this was a tranfiguration class answer and not a graduate thesis defense on charms. "Anyhow, the transfigurative conjuration is simply a transfiguration of air into whatever one wishes to conjure."

Cutting her off before she could wander too far into theoretical discussion of things the class would find neither interesting nor helpful, McGonagall said, "Thank you Miss Granger. Five points to Gryffindor." Turning back to the class as a whole she continued, "The reason this will take up so much time this term is that air is so unlike the items we will transfigure it into."

A hand shot up from one Caitlyn Andrews. When acknowledged, she asked, "Why is that important?"

Buffy coughed to hide her amusement. Even she knew that and she sucked at transfiguration. She raised her hand and McGonagall nodded in her direction. "Because like we learn when we're starting transfiguration, it's easier to change things into things that are similar in some way."

McGonagall sighed and elaborated slightly. "It is not that it is theoretically any harder to transfigure a shoe into an apple than an orange into an apple, it is that magic is driven by our perceptions as much as it is driven by the power we put into our spells. It is because it is more difficult for most people to picture the change in form from one object to another when they are unalike than when they are alike. The great difficulty with transfiguring air is that one must force the air to gain a solid form, colour, shape and presence, a feat which is most difficult for the imagination as much as it is resisted by the air in its tendency to revert to its normal state."

And then they learned the incantation and began to try to make the air form into a needle. By the end of class only Hermione had anything even remotely solid. Harry had grouchily conjured a needle and McGonagall had given him points for his excellent charms work and then taken them away for trying to trick her into thinking he'd transfiguratively conjured. All in all it was a long and unproductive class.

When it was over they left class with Hermione badgering Harry the whole way about how he'd managed to do the charm conjuration so easily, especially when they hadn't yet covered charm conjuration. Harry was putting her off with one-word answers while trying to get out of Buffy what had happened that morning that had so upset Hermione.

Ginny caught up with them on her way from Charms. She listened for a minute to the two different conversations then broke in. "Hermione, we all know Harry is the best Charms student at the school-"

"Except for you," Harry put in. "Ginny taught me how to conjure."

Hermione squeaked. "I have to get to the library," she moaned.

"Hermione, face it," Buffy said, "You can't be the best at everything."

The brown-haired witch hmphed. "Says the girl that can do no wrong in potions."

Looking completely incredulous, Ron said, "Have you ever seen her in transfiguration 'Mione? She's worse than me." He suddenly realised what he'd just said and to who. "Buffy? Please don't kill me."

"Don't worry. I've heard worse," was her reply. As they turned the corner, they spotted a crowd and some shouting. Suddenly the students all ducked as a violently orange curse flew overhead.

"Chudley Cannon convention going on?" Ginny snarked as they weaved through the crowd to get closer to the altercation.

"Hey!" Ron said.

Buffy was about to break it up when she saw the problem. Angel was vamped out and snarling as he tried to avoid Snape's skilfully cast curses. Snape was clearly in his element as he threw spell after spell at the vampire. "I will not allow you to injure anyone in this school!" he shouted.

"Expelliarmus!" came the voices of Ron and Harry from behind her. The spells hit Snape hard and he flew through the air to slam into the wall.

Angel froze, noticing for the first time the gathered crowd and his girlfriend. "Buffy?"

"What is going on here?" demanded McGonagall imperiously as she strode through the crowd. "What – Severus!" she exclaimed as she hurried over to her colleague.

"Oh Merlin!" moaned a couple nearby Hufflepuffs, "He'll kill us all when he wakes up," continued a third.

Buffy ignored them. "What were you thinking?" she demanded of Angel.

He looked at her, bewildered. "Why doesn't he think I'm a vampire? How can he believe all that drivel about not being able to be awake during daylight? Next thing you know he'll say that the only sure way to identify a vampire is by his clothes-"

A wry chuckle escaped Buffy in spite of the whole messy situation. "Sometimes sweetie, it's the only way to pick 'em out of a crowd."

Angel looked like he was going to have a nervous breakdown. It had been too much. Temporal disconnect, waking up with Buffy, talking paintings, amnesia, a castle, witches and wizards, a disturbing and clearly disturbed man, it all pressed at boundaries of his tolerance until he was reading to run through the hallways screaming.

"Mr. Potter, Miss Summers. Why am I unsurprised to find you at the epicentre of the trouble." Oh. Right. McGonagall. Buffy suddenly recalled the older woman's presence as she glared down at them. "I'm sure you all know your way to the Headmaster's office?"

Five teens and one vampire made their way to the gargoyle that blocked the entrance to Dumbledore's office. Angel leaned over and whispered in Buffy's ear, "What now?"

She sighed. "We go up there and I convince him that demonically based vampires exist."

"What?"

Hermione leapt in ready, as always, with a complete explanation. "There are, according to Buffy, more than one type of vampire. The kind that you are, and are therefore familiar with, and the second kind which is known by the wizarding world. They are much like werewolves in that they are victims of a kind of magical viral curse." When Angel nodded attentively, she continued, ignoring the looks of utter boredom on her friends' faces. "I have little doubt that Professor Snape did not believe you precisely because he is unaware of the type of vampire that you are and is solely aware of the other . . . species, if you will. That group is the source of many of those things which you would consider to be myth. Those vampires which are created by curse rather than demonic infestation cannot even be awake in daylight until they have reached a particular age. At that point they become rather . . . erm . . ."

When Hermione trailed off Ron cheerfully cut in, "Completely and totally disgusting?"

"Ron!" she said reprovingly.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Well it's true. Remember that one Hagrid asked to drop by for class?" She shuddered expressively.

Buffy winced. "Ew and ew again." She looked at Angel, "Just imagine the Master if he'd been a little more wrinkly and was slimy to boot."

"I didn't need to imagine that Buffy." The conversation stopped as they reached the gargoyle that stood in front of the entrance to the headmaster's office. There was a lengthy pause as Hermione, Ron, Harry and Ginny all exchanged glances. Angel looked on in confusion as they seemed to argue silently about something. Just as he was about to ask why they were standing in front of an ugly statue Hermione heaved an exasperated sigh.

"Bertie Botts Beans."

"Sherbert Lemons."

"Chocolate Frog."

"Fizzing Whizbee."

"Erm . . . Sugar Quills."

Angel leaned over as the four teenagers continued to spout off words and combinations he'd never heard before and whispered into Buffy's ear, "What are they doing?"

Rolling her eyes she replied, "They're trying to guess the headmaster's password to his office. It's apparently always a candy and the students aren't told it. So if you want to get in to see Dumbledore you have to stand around like an idiot and say all the candies you can think of."

"Humbugs," said Harry.

"That's . . . very odd." Angel said.

A wry chuckle escaped Harry. "Very true," he said to Angel as his friends continued rattling off all the candy they could think of. "There are betting pools on how much of it is an act and how much is that he's simply completely barmy."

Ginny leaned back, letting Ron and Hermione compete over which could come up with more candy names. "I think he's completely barmy and acts normal only enough to make people think he's not barmy." Then she grinned at Harry. "I've got galleons riding on the number of times this year he gets accused of being bonkers by the Ravenclaws."

Momentarily taken aback with the sheer strangeness of the whole situation Angel decided to join in with the two still trying to work out the password. "Nickel Naks," he said.

The gargoyle sprang open as was its wont and Hermione looked at Angel impressed. "I hadn't heard of that candy before," she commented as they rode the staircase to the office.

Angel shrugged, "Comes from being old," he replied easily.

They reached the top and before Harry could knock Dumbledore's voice rang out from behind the door. "Please come in." They filed into the room and stood face to face with the old headmaster. "Well, this is interesting. You appear to be fully recovered Mr. . . ." He paused, waiting for someone to fill in the blank.

Angel's eyes narrowed slightly and he concentrated, trying to recall what this man reminded him of. His eyes widened as he realised, and he responded finally with, "Liam Shaughnessy. But I'm called Angel now."

Dumbledore's head snapped up and his wand was suddenly trained on the vampire. "I don't know who you are, but my father made it quite clear that Liam Shaughnessy could not be alive today."

That was too much. "Angel, don't pick a fight with Professor Dumbledore. I don't care who in his family your evil twin killed making him cranky is a bad idea."

"Cranky?" Ron mouthed to his friends. There was an unusual concept. Dumbledore. Cranky. Not a descriptor used for the irritatingly optimistically cheerful man.

However, Buffy's statement had sufficiently interested the headmaster that he sat back down and inquired, "Perhaps, Miss Summers, one of you might explain who and what . . . Angel . . . is?"

Choosing that moment to burst into the office, Snape slammed the door open with his usual inimitable flair stating, "Headmaster, there is some . . . thing running aournd the school claiming to be a vampire. I believe that he is taking advantage of Miss Summer's inexperience to . . . You!" He whipped out his wand and was about to attack Angel again when Dumbledore stopped him.

"Severus, perhaps we might get Miss Summer's story before we act rashly."

Buffy looked at Angel, but he shrugged a little and said, "You're the one who has more to lose with exposure." Buffy huffed and rolled her eyes ar her boyfriend.

"You're no help." She turned to the two men waiting for her explanation. "Okay. So it's like this. There are two kinds of vampires . . ."

* * *

So it's a sort of cliffhanger. I'm evil. But I knew that. 


	11. Surprises

Disclaimer etc. in part 1.

Notes: Thank you all for you patience in waiting for the updates on this. Firstly, I haven't watched BB&B in forever so I can't recall all the details of the reversal spell. Second, the plants involved in the spell were picked using wikipedia as my reference for plants that are associated with Hecate and somewhat with Diana. If I've missed any other debts I owe in terms of this material, take it as read that just about anything you recognise that isn't from one of my other fics has been taken from somewhere other than my own head.

* * *

It was a goodly amount of time before Buffy had finished explaining to the headmaster and potions professor about vampires and Angel in particular. With frequent interruptions by Hermione in order to clarify some point or other of academic minutiae Buffy worked through the differences between the two types of vampires. The one type was a sort of magical curse, like that of a werewolf. As such, they were no more or less evil than any other creature, they simply had certain dietary requirements and restrictions as well as various lifestyle restrictions and advantages that distinguished them from ordinary humans.

The weaknesses mentioned by Snape back in the hallway to do with sunlight were some of the means usually used to determine if a person was a vampire. Contrary to popular opinion, crosses did not work on magical vampires as they did on demonic ones. Dumbledore and Snape listened to Buffy's explanation of demonically created vampires with interest that rapidly translated into worry.

"As enlightening as this is, Miss Summers, I have yet to hear anything that leads me to believe that . . . Angel," this was said with the utmost disgust, "Is not a danger to your fellow students." Snape informed her.

"I was getting there," Buffy told him irritably, then talked straight over his attempt at interruption and derision. "But if I'd started by saying that Angel was given back his soul by a gypsy curse in revenge for the killing of a daughter of their tribe by his demonic evil twin you wouldn't know what I was talking about."

Snape glared, but was unable to reply because she was right. And he still appreciated her confidence and lack of fear. Then he noted the blatant error in her explanation. "Gypsy curse? Are you, by any chance, referring to the occurrence known as 'muggle magic' Miss Summers? I had thought you more intelligent than to believe in such old wives' tales."

She glanced sideways at her friends but found no help there. Hermione had never really quite believed in Buffy's stories of Amy and her mom and Drusilla's foresight. Buffy had actually seen witches and other such people in action before, but it was one of the tenets of the wizarding world that no magic was possible save the magic that was performed by witches and wizards. As for Ron, Harry and Ginny, well, they just didn't have any previous experience with it so they had no ideas about proof.

It took a moment, but Buffy recalled a couple experiences from the previous year and spoke up. "Okay, you don't believe me, I get that. Can you give me just like, ten minutes to get some stuff and I'll prove it?"

Snape seemed a little surprised and Dumbledore looked amused. Then again, it seemed that he was always amused by everything. However the headmaster nodded and Buffy then turned to the others. "Hermione, could you run down to the greenhouse and pick up some lavender, hellebore, regular muggle mandrake and aconite?" She turned to Snape, "Since you don't trust anyone in your stores, could you get some black poplar leaves? Ginny could pick up the willow leaves. Other than that I just need some water and a cauldron."

Twenty minutes later they had all reassembled in the headmaster's office and were looking at Buffy eagerly. Buffy took all the items and laid them out in front of her. Then she cast a couple spells around the furniture. At their funny looks she shrugged a little and said, "It'll be a little easier if there's nowhere for him to hide." No one's expression changed in the slightest at her non-explanation and Buffy grinned before taking a deep breath in and concentrating very hard.

Willow had written to her about casting wiccan magic. First you had to determine exactly what the outcome of the spell was supposed to be. You had to have nothing in your mind but that outcome. Then you had to sense and collect the magical energy floating around the area. Buffy frowned. That was hard. She could sort of feel it tickling at the very edges of her consciousness, but it was nothing like the pervasive mist of power Willow insisted she saw everywhere. Which only went to prove that Willow was far more talented than Buffy at the whole wiccan witch thing.

With a sudden snap Buffy felt all the powers and things fall into place and began the invocation. "Goddess Hecate I conjure thee," she said, the volume of her voice rising with each word. A gentle wind had sprung up in the room and Snape was looking startled and slightly concerned while Angel was looking almost resigned through the worry on his face. The others just watched with interest. "Before thee let the unclean thing crawl!" A nimbus of dark energy surrounded Buffy for a moment before hurtling out and striking Dumbledore. For a moment it swirled around him, and then he vanished leaving nothing but his robes behind. They fell to the floor in a heap and Ron let out a squeak of startlement.

Snape stared at her, "What did you do to the headmaster!" he roared in fury.

"This," replied Angel. He stepped forward and picked up the rat that used to be Albus Dumbledore. "Did you have to use that spell? I hate rats. I hate the way they skitter around, I hate their beady little eyes and I hate the way they carry plague and you step on them when you're trying to cross the street and then they look a squashed and disgusting."

Even Snape seemed put off by that description. "Way more info than we needed Angel," Buffy informed him.

Dumbledore squeaked.

"You can turn him back right?" Hermione inquired with some worry.

"Yes. I picked this spell because I've seen it worked before." Buffy shrugged and picked up the herbs and leaves and collected them into a little bunch. She separated out the aconite and shredded it. Then she tossed the other plants in the cauldron, filled it with water and lit a fire under it. In very little time it was simmering and Snape was looking on, interested in spite of himself. Buffy picked up her aconite and held it as she began the reversing incantation. "Goddess of creatures great and small, I conjure thee to withdraw." She tossed the aconite into the cauldron watching the sparks fly out of it. "Hecate, I license thee to depart!"

In that instant another swirl of light shot out and surrounded the squeaking rodent, whose little legs were paddling frantically in the air. He glowed for a moment and then suddenly changed back into his usual form of a more than 150-year-old man. The sudden change in weight and weight distribution threw Angel off balance and he fell, with Dumbledore landing on top of him.

A naked Dumbledore landing on top of him.

Ron moaned. "I'm going to need an obliviator after this," he whimpered, covering his eyes. Hermione and Harry whipped around to face the wall while Ginny and Snape stared in a sort of fascinated horror. It was at that less than auspicious moment that McGonagall burst into the office planning to ask what punishments and points were going to be meted out and taken from the students. At the sight of a naked Albus Dumbledore sitting atop a discombobulated young man and several students and Severus Snape standing in various places her lips thinned and she did something that surprised everyone but the headmaster. "Albus! What have you done now?" she demanded.

"Why Minerva, I haven't the faintest notion of what mean," the headmaster replied. Everyone but McGonagall stared at him, blinked, then shook their heads. With Albus Dumbledore, discretion was usually the better part of valour. Or something to that effect anyhow. However, her glare seemed to have some limited effect on him as he looked down at himself with irritating cheer and declared, "Oh! Do you mean my current state of dress?"

Angel swore he could hear the woman's teeth grinding as she seemed to forcibly control the urge to do violence to the person of her headmaster. "Yes. I am speaking of your state of complete undress," she spoke through clenched teeth. "And I would like to know why you are sitting atop Miss Summers' . . . friend . . . in that state."

"Ah. This is due to a small experiment we had Miss Summers run. It appears to have occurred at my expense." Snape appeared to develop a stunning migraine in response to that statement, while Ron, Hermione and Ginny looked both horrified at the image of Dumbledore's current situation and amused at his nonchalance. Harry was simply amused however, and McGonagall looked thoroughly irritated.

"And what experiment might that be?" She demanded frostily. Buffy, who was, despite all her earlier bravado, completely taken aback by Dumbledore's response to being a rat, being naked and the upending of certain of his assumptions about the functioning of the world, hesitantly replied.

"I was . . . .um . . . trying to make a . . . point . . ." She trailed off at the look on the transfiguration professor's face. "Sorry?" she added sheepishly.

Angel finally spoke up from the floor. "Mr. Dumbledore? Would you mind . . .?"

"Oh yes! Of course!" The headmaster leapt to his feet in a sprightly manner and gave everyone a discomfiting eyeful before they managed to turn away. "All right then. I am fully enrobed once more." he informed them cheerily. When they all turned back, Angel was on his feet with the look of a man desperately trying to forget horrors recently seen and Dumbledore had his usual genial face on.

Several seconds were spent with an awkward silence filling the office before finally being broken by Hermione. "Well, I suppose that that . . . erm . . . proves Buffy's point?" she inquired hesitantly.

"It would appear that Miss Summers has proven a myth to be true," Snape said with an approving sort of contemplativeness. "It would appear that these . . . muggle . . . magical techniques could well be useful."

Angel glared at Buffy. "Never again. You know damn well that was dark magic. Calling on Hecate is not something you do lightly."

"Well, the only other spell I'd ever seen performed was when Amy's Mom did that spell about the dark place having her enemy's soul. I didn't think that would go down all that well." Buffy informed him a little sheepishly. Angel rolled his eyes, controlling the urge to shake some sense into her.

"And when did you see this one done?" he inquired.

She flushed, looking a little sheepish. "When Amy was all jealous because of that spell Xander made her cast."

Everyone was looking at her now. Angel was glaring. "And it didn't occur to you that this was dark magic what with it being used to attack you? Or the fact that Hecate is the dark goddess of witchcraft?"

That set Snape off. "You do realise the effects that dark magics can have on you? There is a reason they are known as dark and it is not solely in relation to the outcomes most of those spells are intended to have!"

"Umm . . . no?"

Collectively the others rolled their eyes. Angel sighed. "Just don't do it again. My heart can't take that kind of stress."

"Your heart doesn't beat," Ron pointed out. "It's not like it'll do anything to you." Hermione whacked him in the back of the head and the two descended into a quiet argument about colloquial expressions.

Buffy turned to Dumbledore and asked, "Have I proved my point?"

McGonagall broke in. "What point? What is going on? Why was Albus naked?" There was a collective wince.

"I'd been trying to forget that," Ginny muttered.

Dumbledore turned to the students. "I am quite certain I will be capable of giving explanations from this point," he informed them. I do believe you have classes to get to?"

With that they were chivvied out of the headmaster's office. Hermione promptly dragged the others off to class, leaving Angel to his own devices again. Suddenly he looked over and spotted a familiar face. "Sean? That you?"

"Liam? Lord it's been a while! How did you get here?" the portrait inquired. Angel spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with his old friend who had been taken off to a boarding school when he was eleven. They'd fallen out of touch when Angel had become a vampire so the two caught up on the news.

* * *

Malfoy had not forgotten Buffy's public humiliation of him in Diagon Alley or the way she had publicly flummoxed him in front of the whole school at the welcoming feast with her leather-clad legs. However, he had bided his time for the past couple months, hoping he would find some way to make her slip up. His plans of using potions class to so humiliate Buffy had been dashed when Professor Snape had clearly been duped into, at the very least, maintaining the appearance of liking the chit.

Now that Summers' boyfriend was running around the school, a new opportunity had presented itself. Draco had determined the man was a muggle by his reactions to such ordinary things as portraits and the fact that he had stood around chatting with one for literally hours had only confirmed it. Everyone knew you didn't actually spend any time speaking to portraits. The things were only good for being spies and decorations. Everyone knew that. Everyone but ignorant muggles and muggleborns.

His next step was working out some way of dealing with that muggle. Muggles didn't belong anywhere near purebloods, and they belonged even less so in places like Hogwarts that were at the centre of the wizarding world. It was only a couple days after Draco had made his determination to get to Summers through her boyfriend that the opportunity presented itself.

The boyfriend was standing at the top of a flight of steps that had just moved. He was looking slightly irritated that his route down to the main floor had been compromised and, like a fool, was ignoring the sunlit stairs a little ways down that would take him to nearly the same place. It was a relatively short fall to the floor below, as such things went, so Draco decided to give him a little help down.

Just as he cast the weak banishing spell that would push the man over the edge, Summers appeared below. It was perfect timing and Draco snickered quietly from his hiding place as Angel lost his balance and fell toward the swathe of sunlit floor directly below, coming nowhere near the shaded areas the staircase he'd wanted to take would have gone.

"Angel!" Buffy shouted as she saw him hurtle down. He easily turned around in midair, landing catlike on his feet. Draco's eyes widened in a combination of disbelief and annoyance.

Buffy was horrified. Angel was in the middle of a patch of sunlight. The staircase that normally would have led him over the window that was pouring sunlight into the building and into the safety of the shade on its far side was elsewhere. But to both Buffy's and Angel's shock, he was completely unharmed. "Angel?"

"I . . . I . . . I don't . . . how?" he turned to her, helplessly. It was amazing. He wasn't burning. He wasn't even itching. He was standing in the sunlight and he was fine.

Buffy shook her head. "I don't know how, but we'd better try to figure it out," she said. "I'd hate to imagine that there might be more vampires that are immune to the sun."

They hurried off to write to Willow and Giles to see if there was any sort of precedent, and to check the Hogwarts library to see what that had to say.


	12. Breakthrough

Disclaimer etc. in part 1.

Notes: As ever, thank you for waiting. Law school waits for no one, so I've been putting this off for a while now. Point one, "JC-G" is Jennifer Calendar-Giles. Meaning the now former Miss Calendar. I figured why not? Let's give Giles a permanent female presence in his life. He deserves it. And he would be more comfortable with her helping him with computer stuff than Willow. Point two, I haven't done research and I've never suffered from torture. So, anything I say about torture is to be taken with a very large block of salt.

* * *

Having enlisted Hermione's help with the Hogwarts library and gotten an unrestricted pass to the Restricted Section of the library from Professor Snape, Buffy was now anxiously waiting for Willow's response to her question. She had taken to staring balefully at her laptop in the vain hope that it would make Willow and Giles reply faster. Snape was being as helpful as he could in inquiring around about those who might know something about the situation, but with no idea of where Angel had been for those months he was missing, it was whistling in the dark.

Which turned out to be much what Giles said when Buffy finally had a return email in hand.

_Dear Buffy,_

_Jenny is typing into the infernal machine on my behalf. (He actually said that! Can you believe it? JC-G) I have yet to discover any precedent to a situation such as you described barring a misunderstanding of what you wrote in your incessant mangling of the English language. (I had no idea what I was in for when I agreed to play secretary for him JC-G). There are tales of an amulet which provided protection from the sunlight as well as a state of near-invincibility for a vampire. It was called the Gem of Amara. However, as you have not mentioned any kind of object in relation to Angel's development I do not believe this item can be considered the cause._

_I will continue to search. If any further incidents occur revealing more symptoms of this change do write. It would be worthwhile even if only from a research standpoint._

_Sincerely, _

_Rupert Giles_

_PS I haven't seen Rupert this enthusiastic about something since we had to research the cure for that love spell. It would be adorable if it weren't cutting into our personal time. _

_Jenny_

Buffy stared at the email for a moment and then shivered a little. "Ew," she said.

"What?" Ron asked from his place in front of the common room fire. Ginny, Harry and Hermione had also all perked up.

Buffy winced. "You don't wanna know."

Frowning, Hermione said, "You're our friend and something's upset you. Why wouldn't we want to know?"

"Ever imagined your parents or teachers having . . . um . . . well . . ." She trailed off trying to find a delicate way to say it.

Angel piped up with the shamelessness of centuries of debauchery and the massive social changes society had undergone since the Victorian period. "Making love?" He said from where he had been reading over her shoulder. "Or do you want the more delicate 'being intimate'?"

"Ew," chorused the teens a moment later.

Angel opened his mouth to say something and promptly shut it when Buffy hit him. "What was that for?" he said clutching his arm.

"You're not going to say anything unless it's not related to Giles and Jenny doing . . . it," Buffy told him sternly. "And don't be a baby. You can take it."

He snorted. "First, I was going to ask if Giles had said anything useful at all, and second, when your girlfriend is the Slayer a punch like that hurts, vampire or not."

"Oh, yes. Did Mr. Giles have anything helpful to add?" Hermione inquired eagerly.

Buffy's nose wrinkled for a moment as she scanned the letter again. "He mentions a 'Gem of Amara', but he also said that it was an amulet. He also said that he didn't think it was related, but that it was the only thing he'd come across so far that was at all like what happened."

Those words were enough for Hermione to get up to check through the Hogwarts library stacks. Unfortunately she hadn't found anything a week later either. "Amara derives from Latin and Greek. The Latin means 'bitter' and the Greek means 'unfading'," she informed them. "I've checked and checked, but I simply can't find anything referring to Amara as the name of a person, place or thing, nor have I found anything that relates to the translations."

"Well that was bloody useless," Ron grumbled.

"Ron! Language!" Hermione said in irritation. At the same time Ginny hit him.

He flinched away and looked at Harry and Angel in confusion. "What'd I do?"

"If you can't guess Ron, nothing I say will help," Harry informed him. Angel just shook his head and turned back to the book he was reading on wizardly vampires. Ron continued to look confused as the girls walked off muttering amongst themselves about "emotional depth of a teaspoon."

* * *

Life settled into a routine for everyone. Angel moved out of the Room of Requirement and into an apartment in the dungeons. Buffy and Harry's bunch continued taking classes. Everyone continued to think it was weird that Buffy and Snape got along that well. Still, no firther evidence surfaced as to what had happened with Angel and how it was that he had become immune to sunlight. They had attempted the occasional test to see what kind of tolerance he had for it and had even discovered that he was no longer subject to burns when he was touched by holy objects or water as well as his continued immunity to sunlight.

Ron, Hermione, Harry and Ginny had also talked Buffy and Angel into teaching them some martial arts. Buffy had eventually given up on Ron and Hermione after Ron had attempted to do a spin kick and fallen on his butt for the fourteenth time. Given that he had yet to master any of the basics at all, it was more than a little exasperating to see him flinging his arms and legs around in a desperate attempt to imitate the motions of a professional sparring match between Buffy and Angel.

Hermione was less exasperating than Ron in that she paid attention to the directions and followed them to the letter. However, she lacked confidence in he physical abilities to the point that it severely affected her ability to perform even the most basic of movements. So, Buffy worked with Harry, who was quite gifted, and Ginny, who had all of Ron's confidence in her physical capabilities, combined with Hermione's sensible approach to learning. The two learned fighting techniques faster and so Buffy didn't need the infinite patience that Angel displayed. So, Angel taught Ron and Hermione slowly but surely while Harry and Ginny took great pleasure in beating each other up and then cuddling and kissing each other better.

On having had Buffy and Angel's relationship explained to her, McGonagall had taken the opportunity for some amusement for herself. She had arranged to speak to Angel alone and had promptly shown him the items Buffy had transfigured in her placement test. He had left with images of himself dressed in nothing but black leather trousers or completely in the buff, floating in his head, and the great relief of knowing that he couldn't blush and so would not be caught in the halls looking as hideously embarrassed as he was.

All in all, it was a relaxing month for those concerned and Buffy had almost lost any sense of urgency about Angel and what might have caused his sudden immunity to sunlight. What brought that worry back to the fore was caused by a discussion between Angel and Harry about the current war against Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

Buffy hadn't paid a great deal of attention to it because the war was primarily a Western European thing and there weren't any countries in the Americas that had become involved in any way beyond the most peripheral sense. In point of fact, many of the Eastern and Central European countries had also expressed wishes not to be involved and many countries were actively distancing themselves from the rapidly developing situation in Britain. So when Angel expressed an interest in the mess Buffy could only refer him to the newspapers. Which Harry and Hermione had promptly informed him were utter trash and followed this up by telling him about everything they knew. Which was rather a lot what with Harry being at the centre of the whole war effort.

Harry and Angel were talking about battles as they walked through the halls on the way to dinner and gradually moved on to the topic of the Unforgiveable curses. Harry was describing the cruciatus curse from firsthand experience when Angel suddenly staggered, slamming into the wall. The breaths that he continued to have as both camoflage and out of habit sped up and he began to shudder.

"Angel?" Harry asked as he slowly approached the man. "Are you all right?" He didn't reply and Harry moved closer, seeing the dark brown eyes widen and flicker back and forth as though seeing things invisible to Harry.

Suddenly, Angel's legs seemed to give out and he collapsed to the floor.

* * *

An hour later Buffy was pacing back and forth in the hospital wing while Hermione, Ron and Ginny all looked on in understanding and Madam Pomfrey worked with Snape to try to figure out what had caused Angel's sudden collapse. Harry was only slightly less impatient than Buffy. "Why won't she say anything to us?" Harry asked for the fourth time.

Rolling her eyes, Hermione sighed and responded for the fourth time, "Because she doesn't have anything to tell us yet Harry."

"Now you know how we feel," Ron groused under his breath.

"What?" Harry asked.

It was Ginny's turn to roll her eyes. "Honestly, with the amount of time you spend unconscious and on the verge of death in here we're pretty much used to sitting here and waiting for you to either wake up or die." She continued a moment later at Harry's incredulous look. "It also means we're used to no one telling us anything for hours while we wonder if you've bled to death."

Buffy winced. "A little less talk about dying, please." She said.

"Sorry," said Ginny.

Finally Madam Pomfrey came out from behind the curtains concealing herself and Professor Snape. "I have absolutely no notion of what's wrong with him as I have no notion of what his state should be normally," the woman said. "However, he is conscious and lucid and I do not believe that he is in immediate danger."

"So I can see him?" Buffy asked eagerly.

The nurse sighed. "Yes Miss Summers. You can go in to see him."

Buffy promptly bounced past the nurse and up to Angel's bedside. "How are you? What happened?" She asked him, taking his hand and settling on the mattress next to him.

He sighed and his hand tightened on hers briefly, searching for comfort, before he began. "Harry and I were talking about the . . . what did you call them, 'unforgiven' curses?"

"Unforgivables," Harry picked up the narrative. "I was telling Angel what the cruciatus is like when he just . . ." Harry trailed off, uncertain how to describe Angel's actions.

A wince crossed Angel's face and he began to explain. "I think I remembered some of what happened to me. It was like I was reliving something that seems a lot like what Harry described." He shuddered. "I could remember being somewhere . . . it seemed underground. There were people there and they were torturing me . . ." His eyes glazed over a little. "It was so unsubtle," he continued with a ghost of a smile crossing his lips. "I did better in my heyday."

Ron's eyes were wide. "You caused more pain than the cruciatus?" he squeaked.

Something that bore a resemblance to a chuckle emerged from Buffy's mouth. "It's not that he caused more physical pain Ron," she told him. She shook her head a little. "When you're torturing someone there are more important parts to the torture, especially when you can tell that the person won't fold because of some physical pain. The most important part of torture is the mental part. The way you make someone feel worse because of what you say or do. Humiliating them and stuff."

By the end of the speech Snape, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were staring in shock at Buffy while Angel looked resigned and Harry looked . . . for lack of a better term, intrigued. "You've had a great of experience in being tortured Miss Summers?" Snape inquired.

"She's tortured a few vampires in her day," Angel replied for her. "Although when you had the chance to humiliate as torture I don't recall. Must have happened after I left."

"Oh that," Buffy said. "That was Xander. He threatened someone he knew in kindergarden with telling some story about the time he wet his pants during free time. The vamp totally caved after that." Ange raised an eyebrow at her. "Okay, okay, maybe I broke a few bones too."

While Hermione, Ron and Snape went back to looking properly appalled, Ginny's sense of humour reasserted itself and Harry asked the question again. "Have you been tortured Buffy?"

"No. I've been beaten, threatened, attacked and seriously hurt, but I can't say I've ever been tortured," she answered.

Angel, however, saw what Harry was trying to find out without asking. The questions that were in Harry's eyes were obvious to the vampire. "The most important thing about torture is to prevent them from breaking you. It's all the more important in some ways when the torturer is actively looking for information. Different things work for different people. Sometimes you can find a weakness in the torturer's technique and exploit it by playing up how much one thing affects you and playing down another.

"The difficulty I found when I was being held by those . . . Death Eaters you call them?" The others nodded. "They enjoy causing pain so much it overwhelms any attempts to get information." Angel sighed in exasperation. "If it hadn't been for the fact that I would have suffered for it as the guinea pig, I would have given them tips. Driving your victim insane before you've even gotten the full amount of torture possible from them, nevermind information, is just such a waste."

Hermione twitched a little, but the others recognised the gallows humour for what it was -- an attempt to make light of the situation before the emotions had a chance to overwhelm. Ron asked the first thing that came to mind. "So are you starting to remember more?" Hermione hit him. "Ow!"

It did the trick. "Yes," Angel said. "It's still something of a blur but I remember now. I had gotten diverted to Yorkshire on the way back home and I was out to stretch my legs when several men in black robes with white masks called me 'muggle' a few times, insulted me and then hit me with something when my back was turned that knocked me out. When I woke up I was in someone's dungeon. They talked about casting curses and spells for a while until some other man came in."

"Other man?" Hermione prompted when Angel seemed to have lost track of what he was saying.

"Hmm?" He glanced up. "Oh. Sorry. Yeah. He played up being a villain for a while. All that stilted megalomaniacal talk," he smiled a little at Buffy who grinned back.

"Join me Luke," she said, and then put her hands over her mouth to recreate the sound of muffled, rattling breaths. "Join the Dark Side."

Hermione giggled and added, "I am your father."

Ron and Ginny looked baffled and Harry looked resigned. "That stupid film."

"You don't like Star Wars?" Buffy asked. "You're a guy."

"Dudley used to watch it all the time-" he started to reply.

Hermione cut in, "Which just means you've never actually seen the film. Don't mock."

Ginny and Ron suddenly stopped looking confused and mouthed, "Muggle thing," at each other.

"Is this one of those things Giles and I never get?" Angel asked.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "If Giles wouldn't get this he's been living under a rock for longer than I gave him credit for."

"So just me then."

"Yeah."

"Can I finish my story?" Angel inquired.

Ginny flopped down on the bed next to him and said, "Oh please Daddy, finish the story please. I want to know how the princess escaped from the dragon." She finished with widened eyes and a remarkably guileless appearance. Ron rolled his eyes but sat down as well. Buffy shoved Ginny over and laid claim to her boyfriend so Ginny shoved Harry into a chair and sat on his lap while Hermione took claim of the last chair.

When they were all settled again Angel took up the thread of his narrative. "As I was saying, he was talking like the villian of a Saturday serial matinee when he lifted up his hood and his face . . ." Angel shook his head a little as if to jar the image from his mind. "It was just this horrible scaled thing. You could see that he was once human and had changed himself somehow."

Harry looked very grim as he asked, "Did he have red eyes?"

"Yes," replied Angel. "How did you . . . Of course. I forgot, you've seen him." Harry just nodded in response. After a moment Angel continued. "They told him that I had taken the torture better than anyone they'd ever seen so they were . . . I don't know, seeing what my limit was. He postured, took off his hood and then told them to go on as they were." Buffy took his hand and Angel grasped it gratefully. "Everything after that is a blur, but I remember a green light coming at me some time later."

Hermione twitched upright and got a concentrated look on her face. "Hermione?" Harry asked.

"The killing curse . . ." She said musingly.

The others exchanged looks, but Snape, from where he stood supervising the visit spoke up. "You think that may have some bearing on the . . . changes Mr. Shaughnessy has experienced?" he asked. He had pointedly refused to call the vampire anything as ridiculous as 'Angel'.

Frowning, she said, "I can't be certain of course, but it seems plausible. What if somehow the killing curse managed to damage or even kill the demonic part of Angel? If it were somehow driven off or away it could effectively alter his entire spiritual and magical structure." She leapt to her feet. "I have to get to the library," she told them. "I have to see how the curse works and then we can consult with Mr. Giles on whether it could have had such an effect on Angel."

Everyone stared after her. Buffy said with amazement, "Wow. She's good."


	13. Successes

Disclaimer etc. in part 1.

Notes: As ever, thank you for waiting. My first note (I do these as I go) is that I borrowed the idea of the 'Potter Turn' from Jeconais' fantastic Harry/Gabrielle fic "Hope" which can be found on his website. I'd try to post the url but we all know the site admin here block us from that. You can find your way there through his author page here. There's some great stuff there. I've also been working on the explanation of Angel's immunity to the sun for a while now, as well as a means of avoiding the curse's "true happiness" clause. Anyhow, if the explanation doesn't make sense I can clarify it in the next instalment. Finally, I hope the quidditch match is all right. After all, what would a Harry Potter inclusive story be without quidditch?

* * *

Hermione was indeed good. Within two hours she had plumbed the depths of the Restricted Section and had determined how the killing curse worked. She then insisted on using Buffy's laptop to send an email to Giles describing the complete effects and history of the curse.

_Dear Mr. Giles,_

_I am a friend of Buffy's here at her new school. Angel appears to now recall what I believe may have had a significant impact on him as regards his current immunity to sunlight. Insofar as we can tell, Angel was hit by what is colloquially known here as the "Killing Curse." It is a spell which, when cast at a living target, renders him instantly dead. There is no known way of blocking the curse and there was also only one known survivor until Angel. However, given that Angel is not human or technically alive, this does alter what one might expect of the normal effects of the curse._

_The way the Avada Kedavra (this is the incantation used to cast the spell) works is by briefly severing the connection between a person's soul and his body. It was originally created in an attempt at devising a means of assisting seers and the clairvoyant in entering the astral plane. As you may know, if a person is lost too long on the astral plane his body will die, no matter what physical efforts are made to maintain the physical being. Unfortunately, the Avada separated the soul from the body so dramatically and quickly that it usually essentially "tricked" the body into believing the soul had been lost. When the soul returns to the body mere moments later, the body is dead and there is nothing left for the soul to return to._

_From what we understand, Angel believes he had reverted to an animalistic state in order to defend his consciousness under the torture he was enduring. He somehow pressed his demonic vampire being forward in order to force it to take the pain instead of his own consciousness, thus explaining one reason why his memories are so very blurry. He was then struck by the Avada and left for dead. My theory is that somehow, being struck with the Avada has sufficiently altered Angel's metaphysical being enough to allow him to stand sunlight and other such things._

_As this letter is merely a rapid summation of my research, I have attached to this message the pertinent excerpts of the texts in question as well as a more detailed description from Angel of the precise circumstances surrounding the casting. I hope this is useful to your research as we are all most anxious and concerned about Angel._

_Sincerely, _

_Hermione J. Granger_

Buffy could only imagine the look of geeker Giles-y joy on her watcher's face when Hermione's research arrived at his end. In the meantime, Hermione had vanished into the library searching for alternate causes again while Harry, Ron and Ginny prepared for their quidditch match. Gryffindor vs Ravenclaw.

Angel had watched some of the late-night Gryffindor practices and had been suitably impressed. He was less impressed with Buffy's offer to take him flying, informing her that if Man (or vampire) had been meant to fly, he would have had a non-artificial means of doing so. Buffy once more told him, "You know, those new-fangled flying machines are a lot safer than they used to be."

"I would like to point out," he replied, "That you are saying they are safer than they were, not that they are, in fact, safe." Harry, Ginny and Ron were watching this tennis match of words with interest and amusement. "And more than that, just because I admire you all for being able to take a hunk of wood and make it fly while you're sitting on it, doesn't mean I don't think you're all crazy."

"Oi!" was Ron's indignant interjection. Harry just shrugged. "You know they say you're more likely to get killed while crossing the street than a plane crash." Angel had no response to that and Buffy grinned at him.

"I'm not going up there and that's final," he told her.

And so it was. Instead, two weeks later, Buffy, Angel and a reluctantly-dragged-from-the-library Hermione were ensconced on the Gryffindor sections of the stands watching Harry hurtle toward the ground chased by the new Ravenclaw seeker. As usual the whole game had seemingly paused to watch them hurtle downward. Then the Ravenclaw seeker pulled out of his dive, but instead of flying off to look for the snitch, he seemed to just be watching Harry head down. As Harry pulled out of his Wronski Feint those nearby were able to hear the embarrassed Ravenclaw admit, "I thought you'd seen the snitch. I just knew I wouldn't be able to pull out in time if I'd kept up any longer."

Buffy snorted. "Wimp," she murmured to Angel.

He rolled his eyes at her. "That is just the sort of attitude that explains why people are crazy enough to fly around in the first place."

"What? If he can't take the heat he should get out of the kitchen," Buffy told him. "Besides, you'll notice I'm not out there even though I could've tried out for beater."

Hermione finally poked her head up from the book she'd taken to the game that she was pretending to read while she ogled Ron in his quidditch leathers. "You mean there's some school activity you could have done to take out your violent tendencies in a socially acceptable manner and you didn't take it? Typical."

"Hey!" Buffy immediately objected. "The only people I hit can take it or they deserve it."

"Of course. What's important is that you believe that," Hermione said absentmindedly as Ron reached to make a save, thus exposing the aforementioned leathers in all their glory.

While Buffy spluttered in annoyance, Angel watched the game go by. He suddenly noticed the Gryffindor team moving into the very same positions he'd hashed out with Ron several weeks before while he'd still been suffering from amnesia. He watched in anticipation as the beaters moved toward the opposing hoops and the three chasers split apart, each of them coming in from a different angle. When the Ravenclaws closed in on the chaser carrying the quaffle, two bludgers hurtled through their formation driving the blue team off. For a moment the chasers circled the confused keeper while the beaters seemed to form a web blocking the other team from blocking anything or retaking the quaffle. Then suddenly, the constant motion of the quaffle changed direction completely and shot through the centre hoop.

"Gryffindor scores! The lions now lead by 50 to 30. The Ravens take the quaffle back and are heading for the rings – what's this? Potter's seen the snitch!" The crowd focussed on Harry at the announcer's words. "He's heading at straight at the Ravenclaw goal posts!" Suddenly, if you looked really carefully you could just make out the small golden form whizzing toward the Ravenclaw keeper.

Just as Harry caught up with the snitch, so too did the Ravenclaw seeker catch up with him. They shot neck and neck toward the small ball, jockeying for position. Just as they reached the rings however, the snitch came to a halt and hurtled off in reverse. While the Ravenclaw seeker slowed into a more conventional turn, Harry kept going and let one of his legs drop down slightly, hook onto the righthand ring, swing him around at full speed, and he shot out through the ring, catching up with the snitch and snapping a hand out to pluck it from the air.

All this happened in a matter of seconds. The crowd was stunned silent and then they erupted. The announcer shouted over the crowds through the PA system, "It's a brand new move by Harry Potter! A new fast turn! A Potter Turn!"

They all surged onto the field where Harry was making out with Ginny in a triumphant congratulatory snog. Ron was looking torn between being proud of his seeker and nauseated at the display. When Harry and Ginny resurfaced to breathe, Buffy was there with Angel to tell Harry, "You have got to teach me how to do that."

Having been vibrating with impatience beside them, Hermione finally exploded. "Harry Potter! Of all the irresponsible . . . how could you . . . You could have been severely injured and I know I don't know anything about flying the way you and Ron do but even I know what happens when someone flying at top speeds rams into a solid object! What were you thinking? I nearly had a heart attack when you did that . . ." She ranted on for the next ten minutes as they made their way back up to Gryffindor tower. Every possible thing that could have gone wrong with Harry's stunt was raised from the possibility of breaking his ankle to a dire situation involving Harry in a coma and a great many interrupted bodily functions due to spinal injury. The brunette witch was cut off by their arrival at the tower and the crowds of chanting Gryffindors.

Angel let himself be drawn into a drinking contest with Seamus and the two started trading quips in Gaelic while Buffy joined Lavendar and Parvati in a complicated discussion of the finer points of makeup which left Hermione and Ginny quite boggled as neither of them had ever considered that there could be that level of complexity to covering up uneven skin and adding eyeshadow. Ron and Harry joined the boisterous crowd of Gryffindors in an all-night retelling of every point of the game and many rounds of Truth or Dare.

When McGonagall came to break the party up in the early hours of the morning Seamus had passed out on the chesterfield in front of the fire and several of the fourth years were carefully using their ink to dye his hair green. Her lips thinned as she glanced toward another corner where several students were counting down together in front of a cupboard on the far wall. When they reached the last number Harry and Ginny fell out of it still snogging. Another part of the room had Dean telling a story about his brother, a top shelf magazine and some muggle implements that sent her eyebrows to her hairline to an avidly listening audience of sixth and seventh years including Ron and a scandalised-looking Colin Creevey. Hermione was fighting a losing battle to clean up the party and get the House to bed and Buffy was showing off her cheerleading skills to highly interested fifth years and Angel.

"Mr. Thomas! Miss Summers! You will cease this immediately! Mr. Weasley, you and Mr. Thomas take Mr. Finnigan up to your dormitory at once! Twenty points from Gryffindor for this abysmal behaviour I definitely expected better from you all." She glared impartially around the room and sent the students scurrying.

"Oh Professor, I'm so sorry!" Hermione said looking tearfully but gratefully at her much-idolised teacher. "I tried to make them stop but no one would listen and Ron just wouldn't help-"

McGonagall spent a few minutes soothing Hermione's ruffled feathers and reassuring the girl that she didn't blame her in the least for the rest of the House's misbehaviour. "In fact," she told Hermione darkly, "I suspect that the only reason it was not worse was due to your efforts Miss Granger." She sternly ignored the gagging looks and mouthed, "Teacher's pet!" from the other students as she sent them up to their dormitories to bed.

A sudden shout of surprise and a thud behind her had McGonagall turning around in dread. Several students were gathered around a perplexed-looking platypus. The teacher closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "What now?" she demanded of the students.

Ginny piped up, "I think it's one of the twins' new products. Exotic Creature Confections. They've got a whole line that turn you into unusual nonmagical animals . . ." she trailed off at the look of tired irritation on the face of her Head of House. Sure enough, a moment later a startled-looking fifth year reappeared with a pop to replace the platypus.

"All of you to bed at once!" McGonagall thundered. At that point the last of the stragglers hurried up the stairs to their rooms and the common room was finally cleared except for Angel and the professor.

He held out an arm. "Can I escort you back to your quarters professor?" Angel inquired politely. She seemed momentarily torn, then smiled at him and placed her arm on his.

"Thank you kindly," she said with a suddenly sparkling smile. "I haven't had a young man escort me anywhere for a very long time." They walked through the portrait hole and into the halls. "I've noticed you've had some difficulties of late," McGonagall commented a few minutes later.

Angel sighed. "It's just a lot to take in. Some of the customs and clothing of the . . . wizarding world," He paused and shook his head slightly, "Are familiar to me. I was around when they were in common use in the nonmagical world, but parts of the culture now are very different. Being with Buffy again is wonderful, but seeing her in a place that is so very different from the surroundings I've always seen her in and yet to see her comfortable here is startling."

She nodded in understanding. "It's the combination of the alien and the familiar isn't it?" she commented. "When I step into the muggle world I feel the same way sometimes. It might well be easier to adjust if everything were alien. Instead you see something familiar in an unfamiliar setting and it is more jarring than that which you have never seen before."

"Because it isn't the way it's _supposed_ to be," he finished with a smile.

They had reached the central arch of a line of blind arches. She turned to the wall and said, "Porphyry." The stone seemed to melt away leaving a passage visible. "Thank you for the company," she said with another lovely smile.

"Good evening," Angel replied with a slight bow.

McGonagall had just passed the threshold when she turned around and said, "I trust I don't have to remind you not to mention to the students either the location or the password to enter the teachers' quarters?" One of her eyebrows was arched and her expression was severe. But around the corners of her mouth the smile lingered.

"Of course not," Angel replied, then swept into an elegant court bow. "'Twas a pleasure to escort you to your door," he said, letting just a touch of his old Irish accent colour his voice. Then he kissed her hand, sent a debonair grin her way and swept off into the darkness of the school.

Pomona Sprout came up behind her. "Well, that was something," she observed with raised brows. She turned the look to her colleague. "And how did you do getting the lions to bed Minerva?" she inquired archly.

"Hmm?" A slight prod from the herbology professor brought her back to the present. "Oh you know, the usual. Weasley pranks and snogging."

"And?"

Minerva grinned. "And then an incredibly handsome man walked me back."

"He does have a nice arse," giggled Sprout. "Too bad he's too young. Or too old. . . . Something."

The two teachers headed off toward their suites, giggling like schoolgirls the whole way about Angel. After all, just because they were getting on in years didn't mean they couldn't still look.

* * *

Angel walked back to his rooms and was startled to find Buffy pacing anxiously. "Buffy? What's wrong?"

She whipped around and flung herself at him, wrapped her arms around him and began to kiss him eagerly. He agreeably allowed her to do so for several minutes before slowly detaching her and asking again what was going on. She grinned and told him about what Giles had sent in response to Hermione's email on the killing curse.

"Basically, Giles thinks that Hermione's right about you reverting to having your demon pushed forward. He said that the demon in a regular vampire takes the place of a soul. That it's in the same spot." She looked briefly confused. "Or something like that. I don't get what he means, but basically it's like if your soul has a spot somewhere, the demon takes it's place when you get turned and the soul goes away."

Angel nodded, "I understand so far, but how does the killing curse fit into this? I mean, so far, all the evidence suggests I should have lost my soul still."

Buffy took a deep breath. "Okay, well Giles said that when you pushed the demon forward, it sort of blocked the spell from detaching your soul because the demon was sort of in front of it. But because it's a demon and not a soul, it left traces behind when it got separated. It kinda provided a magical support so that your body still functions enough that your soul can still stick around."

Angel stared at her. "So, roughly, my soul has now reclaimed the place it's supposed to be because my demon has been killed by the killing curse."

"Right."

"And the demon left enough of itself behind that I won't suddenly turn to dust."

"Exactly," Buffy looked at him expectantly.

"What does this mean in the long term?" Angel finally asked.

Buffy grinned. "Giles says that it means that you're not going to be vulnerable to crosses, sunlight and the invitation thing anymore. The other things that would've killed you before will still be able to and stuff, but you won't have to hide from the sun anymore."

There was a lengthy silence and then Angel scooped Buffy up and carried her off to bed and told her as he did so, "I'll look over what he actually said tomorrow, but tonight I'm just going to enjoy the moment." Then they both stopped talking.


	14. Shock

Disclaimer etc. in part 1.

Notes: Coffee Crisps are chocolate bars. There's a coffee flavoured toffee in the middle and chocolate around the outside. Yes, they're a real candy bar. As usual, it's been forever between updates, and it will no doubt be forever until the next one. However, I refuse to apologise for my cliffhanger ending to the chapter. Have fun!

* * *

The morning after, everyone from Gryffindor looked like they'd been on a three-day bender. Harry's hair was worse than usual, Ron appeared to be simultaneously sleeping and eating, a feat which impressed many in the Great Hall to no end as his ability to unerringly find the various food items he wished with his eyes closed and then shovel them into his mouth at his usual rate suggested some sort of paranormal ability to locate food. Colin still looked shell-shocked and all it took to make his eyes bug out was the word from Dean, "Hammers." 

Dean and Seamus merely looked woozy and green despite their attempts to maintain their usual morning banter on girls, sports, girls, classes, girls and girls. Lavendar, Parvati and the other girly-girl types were whispering to each other and fiddling with makeup and hair in an attempt to disguise the fact that they'd had no sleep while Harry was providing Ginny with a pillow by letting her lean her head on his shoulder and Hermione was looking terribly anxious and shushing everyone while sending repeated worried looks to the head tables as though every movement and sound from the Gryffindors would send their house points tumbling into the negatives.

Angel and Buffy were nowhere to be seen until breakfast was nearly over, and the pair of them came strolling in, through the patchy sunlight streaming in through the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall, much to the surprise of those in the Hall. Everyone in the school was aware of Angel's "allergic" reaction to the sun, whether informed directly by Buffy or Harry's gang, or through the constant efforts of the Hogwarts gossip grapevine.

Harry was the first one of his group to spot Buffy and Angel. He raised an eyebrow and nudged first Hermione, then Ron, then Ginny. Ron blearily opened his eyes for the second time that morning, (the first had been locate a troublesomely evasive necktie) Ginny looked at the couple, rolled her eyes, lay back down, then abruptly sat up straight as it hit her that Angel was no longer avoiding the sun. Hermione stopped shushing and started fidgeting madly as she waited for the pair to get to the table so she could find out about the details, whys, wherefores and whatnots of this new development.

"Well?" the brunette witch exploded when they finally got there. "I must assume Mr. Giles has said something that brought about your confidence in Angel's new immunity to sunlight." She looked on expectantly.

Buffy laughed. "Giles didn't even address the email to me. I think he likes you better." Hermione visibly twitched at this nonanswer. Finally the Slayer took pity on her. "I'll show you the email, it has all of Giles' research and stuff in it, but you were pretty much right."

"So how does it feel to not have to worry about the sun anymore?" Ron asked.

It took a moment, but Angel came up with the response he wanted. "It makes me feel like I might truly deserve happiness. As though, in some way, it shows that the penance I've been trying to do over the years actually means something."

Hermione and Ron looked a little confused at this statement, but Ginny and Harry both nodded. Hermione raised an eyebrow at them but Harry just gestured that he'd try to explain it to her later. Ron shrugged it off as one of those things he hadn't the emotional depth to understand and was perfectly happy not understanding.

At that moment several things happened. A late-arriving owl dropped a letter off at Harry's place, Hermione exclaimed, "Oh no! We're going to be late!" Ginny jumped in surprise sending several plates and glasses flying and their contents plunging into the laps and bags of several Gryffindors and Snape and McGonagall came sweeping in to harass the students, getting into an argument with each other over who had what jurisdiction over the altercations which had erupted at the slightest sign of trouble.

In all the furor Harry's letter got shoved into a pocket and forgotten. For the next couple days it was completely missed until Dobby arrived in the Gryffindor common room in search of Harry, waving the letter in the air. "Harry Potter sir! Dobby is having a letter that is being found in the laundry for you!"

Harry had a vague memory of stuffing a letter into his uniform pocket a few days previous and never reading it. He frowned at the envelope. It was, before landing in the laundry, a crisp, white, muggle envelope. Further, he couldn't recognise the handwriting at all. He carefully tore it open and started to read. It was a short letter, but he found himself reading it over and over again in disbelief. Certain it could not say what he thought it was saying.

It was a letter from his Aunt Petunia.

As Harry stood there, staring at the sheet of paper in his hand, Ginny came over and prodded him. "Harry? Harry. What's going on?" He didn't respond to her, still simply staring in disbelief at the letter. Finally Ginny got annoyed and snatched the letter from his hand and started to read it aloud.

_To my nephew, _

_I realise how very ungrateful you are for our kindness and hospitality, but I feel that even you will not ignore the bond of family between us. Several things have happened since you left for school this year and now we require your help. After all we have done for you, allowing you to bring your unusual proclivities into our house, you owe us the favour of assisting us with this problem. _

_There have been several unusual people visiting us recently and your uncle and I wish for you to rid us of them. How you do it, we do not care. All either of us wants is for them to no longer come by. The neighbours are beginning to talk and Vernon has a very important promotion upcoming if we make the right impression. _

_Understand that I would not be contacting you if there were another way to keep these people away. _

_Sincerely, _

_Petunia B. Dursley_

When she finished Ron, Hermione and Ginny were all looking as perplexed as Harry. "She's kidding right?" Ron demanded. "Kindness? 'Bond of family'? Who does she think she is?"

"A shallow, selfish, petty woman who is too stupid to know how to ask a favour," Hermione said acidly.

Watching all this with interest, Buffy had reserved her opinion until now. But hearing the ever-objective Hermione's unvarnished dislike of Petunia Dursley made the Slayer's eyebrows shoot up. "She's that bad?"

Ginny's response was unequivocal. "Worse." As Harry opened his mouth, seemingly about to protest, his girlfriend continued. "And despite whatever Harry may say to try and make it sound not as bad as it is, it's that bad." He shut his mouth, clearly deciding that, if he was picking his battles, this was one worth not picking.

Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy spotted the resigned look on Harry's face. "You're going to go help her anyways aren't you?" she asked.

"Well . . . I . . ." he stammered. Ginny's forbidding basilisk stare only compounded his nerves. Her look spoke volumes of how she would make him suffer if he let his guilt and hero complex overtake what she saw as the only reasonable action.

With a sigh Buffy set out to rescue Harry. "Of course he's going to. He wouldn't be himself if he didn't," she said. "Besides, that's why we're better than the Petunia B. Dursleys of the world. We will help people if they need it, whether or not they deserve it."

"And because we can feel smug we were better than them?" Angel said with a resignedly suspicious look on his face. No one was quite sure how he managed to look both at once, but he did. He fixed Buffy with said look until she flushed and looked away.

"Maybe," she mumbled.

A moment of consideration later and Ron said, "I like that. We'll go and help her and rub it in her face that we're better than her."

"Ron!" Hermione furiously began to lecture Ron about his attitude until Ginny said, not quietly enough unfortunately, that she thought Ron's plan was a good one. However, it was eventually agreed that they would go as group and get permission to go with Harry to help his aunt with whatever had forced her into the dire straits of asking her 'freak' nephew for help.

So they made their way to the gargoyle marking Dumbledore's office and stared at it. "Nickel Naks," Angel finally said. Naturally the password had changed.

Five minutes of candy names later, Buffy pulled out a potions vial from her jacket pocket and started to pour it over the gargoyle and spread it on the wall behind. "What are you doing?" Hermione asked.

"Pouring a dilatory erinaceous potion over the wall and the statue," Buffy replied.

Ginny, Harry and Ron all stared. Hermione frowned. "Why are you doing that?"

"A what potion?" Ginny interrupted.

"'Dilatory' means to be not prompt, and 'erinaceous' means like a hedgehog," Hermione said, "It's a time-delay potion that turns smaller animals into hedgehogs after about ten minutes." She turned to Buffy. "But the only possible effect it might have is if Mrs. Norris comes by and some drips on her accidentally." She paused and something else occurred to her. "Why do you have that anyhow? It's notoriously hard to make."

Buffy shrugged as she splashed the last of it onto the wall. "A couple reasons. Romilda Vane's cat shed all over my $300 new suede boots and I was planning on changing it into a hedgehog. Those don't shed." Ron and Ginny nodded in understanding about the expense and revenge. Harry stared.

"You're getting revenge because there's cat hair on your boots?" he asked incredulously.

"It's not the only reason," Buffy replied defensively. "I said there were a couple."

Angel looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Does this have to do with the lacertiform demon we ran into yesterday evening?"

"You said we need to make it melt," Buffy said as she hunted through her pockets for something. "Ha! Found it!"

Her boyfriend was not to be deterred. "And how is something that makes small animals into hedgehogs going to make a demon melt?" he asked. The other four turned to her expectantly, waiting for an answer.

The Slayer had just pulled her hand back to toss whatever it was she had just retrieved from her pocket onto the potion-covered wall and gargoyle when Snape appeared behind them and made her drop the bag. He picked it up, sniffed it, and then said, "Witch hazel Miss Summers? Twenty points to Gryffindor for such a clever use of available materials." As the other students gaped at him, he continued. "And fifty points for attempting to melt the entrance into the Headmaster's office." He smirked at her. "You didn't honestly expect me to believe that story about Miss Vane's cat was the sole reason you wanted the dilatory erinaceous potion."

"Then could you let us in to see the headmaster so we don't have to stand around trying to guess every single candy ever invented?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow. "Or so that I don't have to put you in detention for the rest of the year and leave Gryffindor in negative points for melting the wall of the headmaster's office?" the professor inquired.

Shrugging, Buffy replied, "That too."

Hermione hid her face in her hands, Harry winced and Ginny and Ron just rolled their eyes. Snape merely turned to the gargoyle and said, "Coffee Crisp."

At that there were confused glances exchanged among the members of the group. Even Angel looked a little confused. "Is that some sort of wizard candy I don't know about?" Buffy asked. The others shrugged.

They made their way up the stairs to the headmaster's office and waited as Snape knocked on the door. "Come in Severus," Dumbledore said from within the inner sanctum. Just before Hermione looked to properly awed at his omniscience, Angel jerked his head at the tiny mirror set in the wall just outside the office. Harry caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and smirked, nudging Ron and Ginny. The two just looked at Harry in a distinct lack of comprehension before he rolled his eyes and gestured that he'd explain later.

A moment later they were inside, facing Dumbledore and explaining Harry's necessary trip to Surrey. The headmaster frowned slightly in thought for a moment after their explanation. "I agree that Mr. Potter must determine what his aunt believes she requires of him. However," and here he raised a hand, cautioning the students. "I believe it would be most prudent for only Mr. Potter and Miss Granger to go," as the voices of the teenagers began to rise in protest, he simply paused and watched them until they subsided, Ron and Hermione flushed in slight embarassment and Ginny looking mutinous.

Buffy looked at them, slightly surprised at their insistence that they should be going with Harry to visit those people they all seemed to agree were really quite unpleasant. She shook herself internally. She was thinking all Giles-y again. Must be exposure to all the Britishness at the school.

"I do realise you wish to accompany Mr. Potter for . . . erm . . . support," Dumbledore finally continued, "But I do believe that he would be better served if Mrs. Dursley was not antagonised by the presence of wizards in her home. Thus I will allow Miss Granger to accompany Mr. Potter and we will send an escort with you to ensure your safety."

And that was the best they were going to get.

* * *

So it was that the next day, Harry, Hermione and several members of the Order of the Pheonix they had never met before touched an old Coke can and portkeyed out to a park near to Number Four Privet Drive. They landed and Harry fell over before climbing to his feet and quickly walking toward his childhood house. "Harry, slow down," Hermione said as she was forced to half-run to keep up with his rapid pace. 

He slowed slightly and turned to her. "The faster we get there, the faster we can deal with whatever the problem may be and get back to Hogwarts." He continued before Hermione could say anything in reply, "And the faster I can gloat with Ron, Buffy and Ginny that I'm a better person than the Dursleys."

At that Hermione rolled her eyes and just concentrated on keeping up with Harry.

They arrived at Number Four and Harry rang the doorbell. Hermione took advantage of the momentary break to glance around the yard and the front of the house. The lawn was still perfectly clipped, not a leaf in sight. The outside of the house was utterly spotless, the shutters on the windows matching the paint colour on the door to utter perfection. It was like an idyllic postcard scene of complete suburban perfection.

Except for the scratches on the door, reminiscent of claw marks and the enourmous swathe of turf that had been ripped out of the front lawn.

Before she could categorise anymore of the disturbing signs of violence, Petunia Dursley answered the door and practically dragged the two inside. "Stop standing at the door," she hissed, "People will wonder what freaks like you are doing visiting here."

Harry just rolled his eyes. He was used to Petunia's overreactions to anything and everything he did. No matter that he was dressed in jeans and a blue t-shirt, both of which were brand new and fit him perfectly, in no way too tight or too loose, and a pair of crisp new Nikes. Nevermind that Hermione was wearing a pair of khakis and a green long sleeved t-shirt herself. Petunia still acted as though somehow his mere being broadcasted his . . . "freakishness".

"What are we doing here Aunt Petunia?" he asked.

She glared at him. "I want you to keep them away. I don't care if you use that stick of your or if you turn into one of them, you will keep them away."

At that, Harry was completely baffled. She wasn't talking about wizards, it was clear, she was talking about something else. "Them? Who?" He glanced at Hermione in the hope that she would have picked up on something he hadn't noticed. She looked as puzzled as he did.

"Does this have something to do with the marks on the doors Mrs. Dursley?" Hermione inquired.

The older woman snarled. "As if you people didn't know." Harry was about to say something when he recognised the look and tone of voice. It was the same one that had exploded from Petunia that night when Hagrid had come to get Harry. The sound of her voice was of some violent dislike, bubbling just beneath the surface, waiting to explode outward. She continued, "When my parents tried to explain about the freakishness in our family I didn't believe them. And then Lily became a witch. Why the hell that bitch got to be pretty and smart and all our parents attention, and all I got was this!" She had turned away, from them as she ranted, but now she turned back, and the shock as much as anything made Harry pull away.

Her skin had developed scales and claws were on the tips of her fingers. A look at her mouth revealed fangs. All in all, she looked very snake-like. The patterning of the scales was very lovely however, and if it weren't for the rage and hatred on her face, she could have been quite beautiful. As it was, however, it was clear Petunia felt revulsion for her appearance.

"I don't . . . understand," Harry finally managed.

His aunt sneered at him. "Let me make it clear then. My grandmother was a demon spawned freak. Because of that, we're part of some sort of clan. And they've been coming by and harassing me even though neither me nor Vernon want anything to do with them. You're a freak, you get rid of them."

At that moment, there was a banging on the door and a moment later, several snake-people, bearing a close resemblance to Petunia's scales and claws came bursting in. "So," said the one in the lead, "Is this him?"


	15. Family

Disclaimer etc. in part 1.

Notes: And here those still reading this finally get to find out what's up with the demons. I've made them up, I've made up the words, and I'm working on making it sound sort of parseltongue-y. And if you really want to know, I do intend for the demons to have something to do with things. I'll be taking bits of HBP and DH, but not much for the final resolution. Not much here really. Thanks to all those people who are enjoying this enough they either reviewed or put me on their updates list.

* * *

Petunia flung an arm at Harry, "Yes. Take him. Take him and keep your damn freakish ways away from me!"

At that Harry felt the world spin briefly. "Take me? Take me where? And why?"

"You did not tell him?" inquired the apparent spokesperson. There was a hissed undertone to his words that become apparent the more he spoke.

"I want nothing to do with you . . . things!" snarled Petunia. A rumble of anger made its way through the group of demons. She didn't even seem to notice the violent mood that sprang up at her words. "I just want to be normal! Why is that too much to ask? Why do all you damn freaks keep thinking us _normal_ folk want to be like you!?"

Before the muttering group of snakeskinned demons could attack, Harry intervened. "What is it Aunt Petunia is supposed to have told me? Where am I supposed to be taken and why?"

The leader of the demons let out a hissing sigh. "Humans call us fithian demons. We are of the Silasseth clan. The Asselifess," he explained.

Harry frowned. "Those who feel the selves of others?"

"So you have already begun to gain the gifts of your heritage," the spokesman seemed delighted. "Already you can speak the tongue of our people."

At that Petunia huffed and snarled, "I don't care what so-called gifts the freak has. You have what you want, now all of you get out of my house and never darken my doorstep again."

Before the muttering could restart Harry sighed and turned to the leader again. "Since you know who I am and all that, will you leave Aunt Petunia alone now? I expect everyone will be happier if the Dursleys don't have to put up with any more paranormal stuff."

"Of course lissihess. There is no reason for us to remain now that we have found you." He turned and gestured for the others to leave.

As Harry and a much bemused Hermione turned to follow the demons out Petunia grabbed Harry's arm and snarled at him. "I had best never see your freakishness again. Do you understand me? You and your sheer ungrateful . . ." With those words Hermione cracked and whipped out her wand. The next few seconds her hands and voice were a virtual blur as hex after hex left her wand. By the time she was done Petunia's perfectly white living room with its monochromatic glory of expensive designer decorations were a multicoloured mishmash of kitsch and Petunia had been turned into a large hedgehog wearing a clown wig and big floppy shoes on each foot. Harry stared at Hermione.

"Forget moral superiority and the right thing," she said in response to his look. "That . . . woman . . . deserves whatever she gets."

"But a hedgehog Hermione? And how long will it last?"

"Well I suppose I could have done an ostrich, it would have been more appropriate, but Buffy's potion inspired me." She turned and started walking away. "And the transfiguration will revert a few hours after your uncle and cousin return home, but the charms on the living room will stay for as long as the Dursleys live here. It will automatically transform overnight back to this no matter what they do to replace the furniture and decorations."

Harry gave her an impressed look and a smile. "You are frightening Hermione."

"Thank you."

* * *

In spite of Harry's interest in what the demons wanted from him or with him, they wouldn't tell him anything until they were somewhere deemed 'safe' by the clan. However, eventually Harry, Hermione and some very disgruntled witches and wizards there to protect Harry from any errant Death Eaters he stumbled across were all ensconced in a nearby greenhouse with the fithian demons.

Hermione spoke first. "What was that you called Harry before? Liss . . . something?"

"It means . . . something like beloved child I think," Harry replied. "It's a lot like the parseltongue word for hatchling."

The one who was at least the spokesperson, if not the leader, started to explain. "I am Issithiass. We have been seeking you for quite a long time lissihess."

"But why?" Harry asked. "I mean, is there some particular reason? Something you need from me-"

He was interrupted by a spate of hissing from the gathered fithians. "There is nothing we need of you," Issithiass told him. "You are of our clan. It is that simple. We merely wish to grant you the opportunity to become one of our clan in truth rather than merely by descent. When the clan shaman spoke of a child born of a line which had left our clan for the human world, one who had the powers of the Asselifess, we wished to care for him . . . you."

Harry blinked briefly and then asked again. "There's nothing you want of me? You just want . . . wanted to . . . to raise me? As a member of the clan? Of the family?" He began to frown slightly. "I mean, you're sure? You're not trying to-"

Issithiass interrupted with a derisive-sounding hiss. "To lie to you? To tell you we wished one thing when we wished another? No. It is not our way to do such a thing. If we merely wished your presence for assistance of some kind we would have approached you with offers of exchange."

Slowly, a smile crept over Harry's face. Hermione took a deep breath. She knew that this was something Harry had always wanted. Family that wanted him around because he was family and not just because of what he could do for them. She also knew that Harry had never quite felt like the Weasleys were his family or her, or anyone else. The number of times he had been relied on as the only person who could save them left him feeling somewhat like his only worth lay in being The-Boy-Who-Lived. If these demons were telling the truth, then Harry truly had what he wanted.

But therein lay the problem. Were they telling the truth? Did they truly want him because he was blood kin, or did they have some other purpose that they couldn't know. Already Harry was walking among the fithians, exchanging friendly-looking parseltongue words with them. The aurors guarding them looked uncomfortable and Hermione knew that she had to step in. "Harry? I know you want to spend more time here, but we do have to get back to Hogwarts."

"But Hermione, I . . ." He caught her look and understood she had other reasons to ask beyond merely wanting to get back to classes. "You're right, of course." He turned back to Issithiass. "Is there a particular way I can contact you? I have friends that I have to tell about you and I am in my last year at boarding school."

The demon smiled, looking surprisingly benevolent despite the fangs visible in his mouth. "Of course you wish to inform your friends, and I would never wish you to be forced away from the path you are on solely at our whim. As to contact, let me give you my email address," he said, "Just because I am a demon does not mean that I cannot use a computer."

A couple minutes later they were on their way to a parkette nearby where they would be out of sight to use the portkey back to Hogwarts. The moment they were settled on their feet, Hermione was darting off to Gryffindor tower with Harry hot on her heels wondering what had her so anxious. As they cleared the portrait entrance to the common room, Hermione made a beeline for Buffy and demanded to use her email. "I need to speak with Mr. Giles immediately," she insisted.

Harry frowned. "Why? You're not . . . Issithiass isn't evil Hermione!" He said as he suddenly understood what she was doing.

"How do you know?" She demanded. "Harry, I understand how much you want family, and I know he seemed very nice. But how can you be so certain he's not just trying to trick you. Just because he said they wouldn't doesn't mean they actually wouldn't."

"What happened?" Ron demanded. So while Hermione tapped away at the keyboard, writing a letter to Giles asking for all the information he had on fithian demons, Harry told them about the trip to Surrey. By the time he finished, Buffy was squinting at him a little, her head tilted sideways, and Angel's nostrils were flared as though testing Harry's scent.

"What?" Harry asked, a little twitchy at the close scrutiny.

Angel shook himself a little and replied, "Now that you've brought it up, I can tell that you're not completely human." He shook his head a little. "It's hard to pick out because there are so many things around here I've never encountered, the oddity gets a little lost in the shuffle."

"It's true," Buffy agreed as she stopped the disconcerting stare in Harry's direction. "I can tell there's something off about you normally, but I couldn't tell how much of that was from your curse scar and stuff and how much was other stuff." She shrugged. "Now that I know about the demon part of you I can tell it's there and stuff, but if you hadn't told me I would never have figured it out."

Harry sighed in resignation. "Do you know anything about fithian demons Buffy?" he inquired.

"They're definitely not known for causing any sort of trouble," Angel responded in her place. "I do know that I've never heard much bad about them." He frowned slightly. "I had heard something about them having some sort of psychic abilities, but never anything specific."

Perking up from her letter, Hermione said, "Didn't Issithiass say something about seeing peoples' thoughts or some such?" she asked Harry.

"The Asselifess. Those who see the selves of others. Roughly," Harry said. "But I got the feeling it related to something more than just thoughts or feelings. It's more like . . ." He paused, searching for the right words. "Like seeing souls," he finished.

That gained him some wide-eyes stares from the others, except for Hermione who was now adding further details to her lengthy email to Giles.

Buffy abruptly stood. "Okay, so right now we don't know anything and we have to wait until Giles gets back to Hermione before Harry's going to do anything in particular. Right?" she turned to Harry who, a little reluctantly, nodded back. "Then I'm going to go hunting. Join me Angel?" she asked her boyfriend. He nodded and stood as well. That signalled an end to the whole discussion and Harry and Ginny broke off to snuggle in a corner, Hermione headed straight for the library to see what she could dig up on fithian demons, and Ron wandered about, looking for someone foolish enough to challenge him at a game of chess.

As the others were settling in for a quiet evening in Gryffindor tower, Buffy and Angel were using Buffy's usual escape route for heading out to patrol for vampires, hopping off the roof onto the lower section of roof down the line until they had a relatively short drop to the ground. "Is there some reason we have to keep doing this?" Angel asked. "They know you're the Slayer now. Couldn't we just walk out the main doors like normal people?"

Buffy rolled her eyes as they crossed into the tree line, their easy lope turning into a steady walking pace now that they were actually in the forest and needed to be more cautious. "For one thing, if we got noticed by one of the prefects, they'd dock points, the rest of the tower would totally shun us for losing points, then I'd have to explain what I was doing out and get permission and all that stuff and it would take _forever_." She glanced over at him. "People already think I'm really weird too. At least this way it keeps the weirdness factor down to something ignorable."

"Jumping out the window is less weird that special permission?" Angel asked sceptically.

And then they were interrupted by a loud snarl and a couple fyarl demons and a vampire came bursting out of the underbrush. As was usual for that kind of demon, the fyarls just slammed headlong into Angel, swinging their arms around with tremendous force although with no real skill as they tried to pummel him into mush. The vampire on the other hand, launched herself at Buffy with a flurry of well-practiced kicks and karate chops that had Buffy struggling as she faced the rare challenge of a vampire as well trained in combat as she was.

It was rare as most vampires were so much stronger than the humans they hunted there was no need to have more than the most rudimentary fighting skills. Most of the time vampires simply relied on faster reflexes, greater strength, heightened senses and the fact that they could take a great deal more damage than the people they were trying to kill. This one wasn't. In fact, they were quite closely matched and Buffy began to worry about this one. Because not only was Angel somewhat preoccupied with the fyarls, Buffy wasn't sure that, at this rate, she'd manage to hang on long enough for him to dispose of them.

"What's the deal?" Buffy asked, "You just leap out at us like that? No warning, no banter," she got out between swings. "What's the deal with the demons anyhow?"

"Silence Slayer!" shouted the vampire in the usual melodramatic fashion these meetings took after Buffy _didn't _fold like a cheap lawn chair. "You and the Traitor have been destroying the natural order for too long." With that she launched a spin kick that sent Buffy flying backward. Dimly Buffy heard Angel shout her name as she got to her feet and braced herself for the next attack. But it never came. Instead, there was a lengthy silence and Buffy chanced a look around.

The fight had taken them out of the Forbidden Forest and onto the Hogwarts grounds. The vampire and two demons were staring dumbfounded at the castle that had loomed out of nowhere. Buffy took the momentary pause to stake the vampire, at this point she wasn't above doing while her opponent's back was turned, and Angel whipped out the broadsword he'd been carrying from absolutely nowhere and beheaded the Fyarl, then yanked out a knife, also from nowhere and stabbed it through the heart. The other demon took off into the woods too quickly for them to follow.

"Wow," said Buffy.

Angel pulled her close. "I know. That was too close for comfort," he told her. "I was terrified when that vampire knocked you down."

"Yeah, that too," said the Slayer. "But what I was really wondering was where the hell were you keeping that sword?"

"What?"

"What are you, like the Highlander or something?" she asked as they started back up to the school. "I mean, it was just like, no sword -- _whoosh_ – sword. Ow." Buffy hissed as Angel's hand accidentally found the serious bruising on her side.

Angel tugged her over and lifted up her shirt before she could even react. "Oh Buffy. Let's get you inside. I want to take a better look at that."

She batted at his hands. "It's fine. Doesn't hurt all that much. Probably a cracked rib or something. I'll be fine by morning. I've had 'em before."

"Right." Angel scooped her up, and carried her over to one of the side entrances to the school despite her protests. "Who the devil is this 'Highlander' anyhow? Have you been hanging around with some Scottish boy at this school?"

"You are so out of touch with pop culture it's not even funny," Buffy groused.

As Angel carried her along the hall, Buffy suddenly realised they weren't heading toward the tower at all. "Where are you taking me?" she demanded.

"The school nurse," he replied. "You're hurt, and if everything I've heard from Harry is right, she'll fix you up in no time and I won't have to worry."

Buffy glared at him from her spot in his arms. "You don't have to worry now. I'm fine – ow!" she broke off as Angel began trotting up the stairs taking the steps in threes and jostling her a little as he did.

"You wouldn't be in pain if you were fine. QED," he said with just a trace of smugness.

"What?"

"Your classical education is so very lacking it's not even funny," Angel sniped back at her.

"Meaning what?" Buffy demanded, incensed. And then she noticed they were arriving at the hospital wing doors. "No! No no no no no!" Angel ignored her and walked in. "Angel, I hate hospitals and. . ." she broke off at the sight of Madam Pomfrey who had stepped out of her office.

"What seems to be the trouble?" the mediwitch inquired.

Angel gently laid Buffy down on one of the beds and then held her down to keep her from bolting. "We think she has a cracked rib."

Buffy's look at Angel promised dismemberment at a later date.

"Hmm," began Madam Pomfrey. "You're right about that." She turned around and came back with two potions. "Take this one for the ribs, and this sleeping potion. You'll heal faster if you're asleep and unable to cause yourself more damage."

Buffy stared. "Harry's right. You do like taking people hostage in this place!"

There was a brief pause as Pomfrey glared at her. Then she spoke. "If I could trust that you students would not go hurtling off to damage yourselves again I would be fine with allowing you to leave. As it is, long experience has taught me that, if I do not restrain the students, they will reinjure themselves within a matter of minutes."

Buffy shot a pleading look at Angel who just said, "Don't even think it. I'll sit on you if I have to."

Thus entrapped, Buffy took the two potions and fell asleep still muttering about that various dire ways she was going to take revenge on her boyfriend for making her spend a night in the hospital.


	16. Information Exchanges

Disclaimer etc

Disclaimer etc. in part 1.

Notes: Okay. You wanted Sunnydale, you're getting Sunnydale. That said, don't expect much of them. Quite frankly, I'm not too good with an ensemble cast, and adding the Scoobies at any length will be problematic.

* * *

Unbeknownst to both Buffy and Angel, they had an audience to their fight. Malfoy was skiving off his prefect duties that evening since he was supposed to be patrolling Slytherin territory. After all, if he caught one of his fellow Slytherins out, he'd have to find a way to avoid taking points off his house. If he didn't catch anyone to begin with, there was no need to try to justify not having taken those points. So he was simply avoiding the issue by making a quick round or two through the corridors, not scrutinising any unusual sounds too closely and then heading outside to see if he could catch Potter or someone at something outside.

He got considerably more than he'd expected. Following the Summers girl out into the night had gotten him a fascinating eyeful. He'd noticed her when he'd overheard her talking to that muggle boyfriend of hers. She was saying something about not wanting to get caught by prefects and losing points. With the understanding that she was up to something that clearly could lose more than the few points for simply being out of bounds, Draco followed them across the grounds, listening to a conversation about special permission and how weird people already thought Summers was. He was about to go and find a professor to get her in trouble when he realised they were entering the Forbidden Forest.

Draco got that lovely tingle he always got when he knew he was about to make a significant score against his enemies. He followed them in, ignoring his memories of the last time he'd been in the forest. After all, he'd been eleven then and it was hardly becoming to still be frightened six years later. He carefully cast a few silencing spells to cover any sounds he might make and picked up the pace a little so he wouldn't lose them. He was rewarded for his diligence when he saw some sort of monsters attack Summers and her boyfriend.

But instead of dying the way they ought to have done, the two had the gall to get into flashy fisticuffs with the creatures. One of whom seemed human until a different angle showed Draco that her face was completely inhuman. The fight spilled out of the forest and onto the Hogwarts grounds, where Summers and her boyfriend finally disposed of two out of the three creatures and clearly sent the last one running. It was also clear, after the fight, that the female monster had injured Summers. More than that however, he had seen that her seemingly muggle boyfriend was not muggle at all, but some sort of creature. Clearly of the same species as the female, but just as clearly not allied in any way to her. Most interesting was her reference to Summers' boyfriend, "Angel" if he recalled correctly, as a traitor. Traitor to _what_ was the question.

Intrigued at this turn of events, Draco turned around and headed back to the Slytherin dorms, intent on writing a letter to his father about the situation. He had written to his father about the chit and her boyfriend before, but he had never seen anything of great significance to her beyond the inexplicable tolerance the staff had for her boyfriend. As such, the regular reports he made to his father, acting as updates to the Dark Lord on the current situation of the school and its inhabitants, had contained merely brief mentions of her. But now that he had seen her fighting those monsters, and that the man he'd previously thought to be a muggle was clearly not even human, he clearly required further investigation.

At least it explained why the man hadn't been hurt by a three story fall.

In any event, Draco mused as he settled in to write his father, he would send the Dark Lord a report through his father. Perhaps he would even get the glory of the discovery of new allies for their cause. Summers was clearly aligned with the Golden Boy and Dumbledore, which suggested that these creatures might be amenable to some sort of agreement regarding the muggle-lovers, mudbloods and Dumbledore in exchange for the Summers chit and her boyfriend 'Angel'.

* * *

Back in Sunnydale, Giles mused about how things had changed since Joyce Summers had sent his slayer away to a boarding school at some undisclosed location in Scotland. There was something about that school that rang bells in the back of his mind, but months had passed and Rupert still hadn't figured out what that was about.

Nonetheless, it was odd working with Kendra now. In spite of the number of times he had complained to Buffy about her unorthodox approach to both slaying and the slayer-watcher relationship, he found himself missing Buffy's relaxed attitude and more independent style of working. He appreciated the way that Kendra insisted on reporting back to him with every single kill, followed the standard operating procedure to the letter and provided real assistance when it came to research. However, there had been several times where Buffy's tendency to follow a lead to ground might well have gained them the answers they sought, and the amount of trivia that Kendra provided in terms of details of fights and requests for further instructions were tedious at best.

For example, he had yet to determine who had been providing the sacrifices to the demon Lurconis before Trick had come to town. The site had had all the appearances of a long term sacrificial chamber, but Trick was a newcomer. More than that, everything he had found on the vampire suggested he preferred to take the role of an agent of others, a notion bolstered by his position of aide to Kakistos when he first arrived in Sunnydale. With Buffy's enthusiasm, she might have succeeded at tracking Trick to the person or thing actually commanding the sacrifices.

Of course, Rupert never had to remind Kendra to show up to practice, or beg her to stop speaking about whatever hormone-infused discussion she had distracted Willow with. But he no longer had anyone to argue about the relative merits of the Bay City Rollers in comparison with Buffy's horrible techno "music". He missed that camaraderie. He knew that Cordelia, who had somehow entered the fringes of their little group on a permanent basis, missed having someone there to talk about arcane complexities of female clothing, Willow missed simply having a girl friend and Xander missed having someone around who was a close friend but was as clueless intellectually as he was.

On the other hand, the Hermione Granger Buffy had befriended at her school was a highly entertaining correspondent who had provided some fascinating new directions and areas of research for Rupert. Even if it was all communicated through that blasted machine. Even as he thought this, the machine made a beeping noise which brought Jenny out of the office to check on it. "Rupert, there's another email for you from Hermione," she told him.

Rupert eagerly approached the machine, a thought which gave him pause, but shrugged it off. He wasn't eager for more contact with the benighted monstrosity which had invaded both his library and the sanctity of his home. He was simply interested in what the highly intelligent young woman, who knew how to spell both 'armour' and 'realise' correctly, had to say.

She was now inquiring into the finer points of fithian demons it turned out. Her friend, Harry, had been approached by several and informed of his heritage. She went on to describe an intriguing ability which the demons claimed came through his demonic heritage (which Hermione claimed had been confirmed by both Buffy and Angel – through psychic ability and scent respectively) but which had previously been believed to be the result of some sort of magical connection between this Harry and another magician who had attempted to kill the young man as a baby.

Rupert was soon delving into his tomes, happy to have something to distract him from the research he'd been doing lately on Mr. Trick. This was extremely interesting and was giving him the opportunity to look through some of the books he kept as reference material that he hardly ever used.

It was later that evening, on receiving a call from Quentin Travers, bloody arrogant twat that he was, the Giles realised what a boon Buffy's unexpected relocation from Sunnydale truly was. In all the excitement of his time on the Hellmouth, he'd forgotten about the Cruciamentum. With Buffy located someplace away from the Council's jurisdiction, there was no one who would be able to give her the necessary injections to weaken her. There would be no test on her eighteenth birthday, which would give him time to find a way to talk the Council out of such a self-destructive practice.

Because for some reason, the Watcher's Council couldn't find Buffy at all. She was seemingly behind some very powerful wards that kept any of their magics from penetrating. Moreover, wherever Buffy was, it wasn't in any official files the Council could find.

Several panicked emails later, Buffy had responded, reassuring Rupert that she was in no danger, using some sort of bizarre internet telephone system. He hadn't realised until right then, just how much he'd missed hearing Buffy maul the English language.

It was broken and difficult to catch everything, but Buffy explained that she was at a school that, unbeknownst to her mother, was actually a school intended to teach magic and other occult studies. Rupert actually got onto the computer after the call ended to write a scathing letter to Buffy for not telling her friends and himself that she was at such a school.

Then he added a letter to Hermione which contained all the information she had requested on the topic of fithian demons and emailed it. Then he realised he had spent most of an evening sitting at one of those dreadful machines that were bound to be the end of the written word as he knew it and informed his very amused wife in no uncertain terms that he was never doing that again. Jenny comforted her . . . distraught spouse and then crept off to email all her internet buddies (and Willow) in glee that Fort Giles had succumbed to the wiles of the internet.

* * *

Harry had completely ignored Hermione's advice and had emailed Issithiass over the past couple days, happily exchanging chatty letters about his classes and friends, Issithias' new hatchlings and the online adventure game company Harry's cousin ran with some other members of the clan and a couple other peaceable demons.

Buffy, meanwhile, had been drafted to teach Harry to 'hone' his senses. Angel had heard this news and promptly found himself stifling unmanly giggles at the idea of Buffy teaching anyone else how to reach their mystical potential.

"What?" Buffy demanded irritably of her boyfriend.

Angel raised an eyebrow. "I'm not saying you don't have a good grasp of your Slayer psychic abilities," he told her, "It's simply that you tend to express them as clothing critique." Completely immune to her glares promising death and dismemberment, Angel continued. "Why do you think Giles never understands when you're having a moment of Slayer-related warning?"

She glared and began to storm off in a huff. "Just because I happen to notice something I can point at to prove that the person I'm planning to stake is a vampire does not mean that my senses 'express themselves' in clothing."

"I think it's one of the things that makes you an individual and it's part of why I love you," Angel told her as he easily kept up with her much shorter stride.

When they arrived at the empty classroom the Harry had pre-empted for the purposes of practicing his demonic talents, Angel settled off to the side. Harry raised an eyebrow at him and asked, "Why are you here?"

Buffy answered. "Angel is unusual as far as psychic readings go," she explained. "So am I, for that matter. The thing is, it's easier to start using your sixth sense on something weird, than trying to use it to pick out one thing when that thing is like everything else around." She shot a warning look at Angel, then said, "The other thing you're going to want to do is figure out _how_ you sense things."

Harry interrupted at that point. "I thought you were going to be teaching me that," he protested.

Buffy shook her head. "That's not what I meant," she said. "Willow said that when she's doing spells, wicca-style, she feels the magic floating around her like water. Demons and stuff like that feel like stagnant icky swampwater to her," Buffy told him. "I talked to Ms Calendar once, and she said that various magickal energies felt like wind, different kinds of winds meaning different things. Kendra looks at vampires and demons and stuff and she says it's like she can see a sort of slimy dirt all over them."

Angel broke in with a slight smirk. "And when Buffy sees a vampire, she sees the failures in their taste in clothing," he told Harry. "It's all about what is important to you and how you perceive people. The things you notice."

Buffy glared at Angel. "The shoulder pads so totally screamed predator and you know it," she groused at her honey.

Harry suppressed a smile, instead choosing to nod thoughtfully. "From what you're saying though, I'd probably have sensed things before now, but perceived them as being some other thing," he said slowly. "Due to Buffy's obsession with clothing, she interpreted her reactions to vampires and such as reactions to clothing." Buffy glared at Angel, then Harry, clearly feeling she was being ganged up on.

"Anyways," Buffy cut in, "First, you're going to have to learn how to use your sixth sense. So, what you wanna do first, is get comfortable, then close your eyes and just start listening."

The wizard nodded, and started to get comfortable, but asked, "Why?"

"Simple," the Slayer told him. "Most people, especially you, Mr. Seeker-man, use their eyes the most out of their senses. By cutting them out, you're having to focus on the senses you use less. While you're focussing on them, you'll start to get the feeling like you're hearing or smelling things, but not things you can ID clearly. Sort of like seeing something out of the corner of your eye. You have to focus and let everything wash over you, let stuff jump out at you on its own. You'll know what's important 'cause you'll start focussing on that." She smiled at him. "That's the first step. Can you feel anything weird when you're totally focussed on just sensing if there's something weird?"

Harry nodded. "And then?"

She shook her head at him. "What we're aiming for is for you to walk into a room and know, without looking, that there's something bogus there. But that comes later. First, you gotta know where the sixth sense _is_ in your brain and how to get at it."

He nodded again and said, "Right." Then he settled in comfortably and closed his eyes.

Buffy let him settle in and then said in a soft voice, "I want you to keep your eyes closed and just feel. Don't focus on what you hear, smell, taste, or what your body can feel. Focus on the inside of your head. You need to feel your mind reaching out, letting your instincts guide you. It's all about instincts. Hermione said that you've had some experience with people poking around your brain. You know what the difference between your own thoughts and external feelings and thought are. Let that feeling of something that's not you intruding in your head be your focus.

"Now just breathe, and let it come. You'll know when it does."

Buffy and Angel watched, as Harry sat there for about five minutes, seemingly meditating. Suddenly his eyes snapped open and he stared at Buffy, shock written all over his face. "Buffy?" he said hesitantly.

"Yeah," her voice had a questioning note to it.

He swallowed. "I can see . . . there's so much power, but it's not . . . accessible, the way your magic is. I . . ." Then he blinked. "It's gone now. I didn't think I'd see . . . I mean, I didn't think you had so much power," Harry said. "You're not . . . erm . . ."

"A normal mystical vessel?" Angel asked, slightly amused. He ignored Buffy's glare. "Personally, I think it's a result of her power. Buffy has so much she doesn't have to spend her time giving herself an aura of power to make up for it."

Buffy stuck her tongue out at him. "Or maybe it's 'cause I don't wanna spend all my time talking like Giles."

Harry shook his head in amazement. "But the things you must be able to . . . feel," he said softly. "And yet you act like everyone else."

"You've seen Voldemort face to face more times than most people, you fought off his spirit when you were only eleven and you've got this prophecy about you and him," Buffy said. "But I don't see you hanging around acting all weird and like you think you're a mystical whosit." Her lips curled up slightly at the corner.

Harry was about to respond when he understood. "We're both normal," he said in wonder. "We just have these abilities we've been forced to take on."

Buffy grinned at him. "Exactly." Then she raised an eyebrow. "Now that you know what it feels like to find your centre, how about you try meditating again and see if you can get there faster. And maybe even see what you think of how Angel's soul looks."

"Right," said The-Boy-Who-Lived.

The next couple hours were taken up with Buffy taking Harry through meditation until he could fall into a meditative state to see peoples' auras almost immediately. By the end of that time he was getting a little tired, but he was showing a lot of progress.

"Well, you're faster at this than I was," Buffy told him.

Angel smirked from behind her. "That's because you were always being difficult for Merrick and Giles," he told her. "Once you actually tried, you picked it up fast."

"Pfft," she waved a dismissive hand in his direction. "Once they started talking American instead of crazy old guy British I picked it up." She stuck her nose in the air and started speaking with a truly horrendous 'British' accent. "Buffy, you must hone your senses to their keenest and let the essence of the demonic presence wash over you." She reverted to her normal voice. "Blah blah, I'm so British give me a scone," she finished.

Harry couldn't help the bark of laughter that escaped him. "'I'm so British, give me a scone'?" he asked. "Do all Americans think of us that way, or is it just her?" he asked Angel.

"I'm really not sure. Then again, the number of times Xander's asked me about the Lucky Charms leprechaun just because I'm Irish—"

Buffy rolled her eyes and interrupted her boyfriend. "He does it because he knows it annoys you. It's the same reason you like to sit at the Bronze and stare at his neck and deny it."

"I do that because it makes him leave," Angel said. "That boy is the most annoying person I've ever met and I include Spike from back in the day when he kept getting us stuck in mineshafts because he let the whole damn village know we were vampires."

"Well, that's not surprising what with what he did on parent-teacher night," said Buffy. "Stupid vampire."

She hadn't told him this story yet. "Who's Spike?" Harry asked.

Buffy rolled her eyes in remembered annoyance. "He's a vampire who looks a lot like Billy Idol. The first time I fought him was when Snyder decided that I was too much of a delinquent and made me and this other girl organise everything for parent-teacher night at the school." Buffy shook her head. "Me. Delinquent. I burn down one school gym and people compare me to the girl who stabbed her teacher with pruning shears."

The gaggle of Ravenclaws passing by heard this comment and collectively turned and stared at her as they passed, suddenly completely silent.

"What?" Buffy asked.

At that point the Ravenclaws chose to speed up as a group and hurtle off down another corridor. Angel sighed and shook his head at her. "You just admitted to burning down a school building once, Buffy."

"So? It's not like anyone paid attention before," she told him with a glare.

Angel chuckled. "Buffy, it's half of what your schoolmates in Sunnydale gossip about. They just don't do it within your earshot because they're afraid of you."

"Hmmph."

Harry poked her. "What happened with Spike?" he asked. So Buffy told him about parent-teacher night and Spike pushing the date of St. Vigeous forward and Angel talked about getting to annoy Xander back by pretending he was going to kill him. That led to a discussion of who was more annoying, Xander or Cordelia.

They walked back to Gryffindor tower, amiably bickering the whole way about who the most annoying people were in their circle of friends and with friendly sniping between Buffy and Harry about whose English was sillier.


	17. A Finale of Sorts

Disclaimer etc. in part 1.

Notes: I'm done. Finally done. I want to thank everyone who named this on their favourites, everyone who sent me reviews, and all those who've stuck with me through the entire time it took me to do this story.

Secondly: No. There will be no sequel. Yes, I left you all hanging, but I have no desire to try to rewrite the last four seasons of Buffy factoring in her friendship with Harry Potter and the gang. I've told the story I set out to tell five long years ago and that's good enough for me. Yes, the ending is a little abrupt, but I've reached the point where, if I don't end it now, it may never be finished. I mean, some people have started and finished university in the time I've been writing this monster.

Still, I hope you enjoy the end, and I hope you all enjoyed the ride.

* * *

Several unremarkable weeks passed, during which nothing happened. All the students went to classes, did their homework and generally acted like students at boarding school. Buffy continued with training Harry in using his new soul-sensing powers in their spare time and Harry continued to email Issithiass.

Naturally, it was all too good to last.

Even less surprising was that it was all Malfoy the Younger's fault. He'd been spending those peaceful weeks sneaking around and trying to gather more information on Summers and her connection to those powerful dark creatures he'd seen her fighting. He hadn't had a lot of luck with it, in no small part because Summers and Angel both had preternatural senses that usually let on when they were being followed in such close quarters as Hogwarts.

His persistence had paid off in following Potter's friends about, however. He'd gleaned that those creatures claimed to be vampires as well as the creatures he knew as such, and that Angel was one of them, but some sort of spell had been cast on him which had altered his very nature. More, it appeared that Summers was some sort of creature hunter herself. Something known as a Slayer. Draco had had very little luck in divining how many of Summers' singular talents were purely her own, how many were due to whatever ritual she had so clearly involved herself in to gain those talents, and how many of those talents were merely a matter of hard work or inheritance.

The information he had gathered had been sent to the Dark Lord who, even now, was trolling the underbellies of various cities to contact these unusual 'vampires'. In fact, all that time which passed had allowed the Dark Lord time to gather his forces to strike at Hogwarts and force an end to the ridiculous mudblood infestation. Soon it would be time.

* * *

Buffy had been slightly surprised when Harry told her he was going to have to skip their frequent training sessions because Dumbledore had demanded his presence. She shrugged it off, knowing that it was probably something Harry had been asked not to reveal by the Headmaster, and instead spent more time patrolling in the forest with Angel.

It was after midnight and Buffy had finished her sweeps. She was just about ready to pack it in for the evening when Angel tapped her on the shoulder, inclining his head to indicate direction. Buffy paused, concentrating, and heard the sound of soft voices nearby. Moments later, she and Angel were in the trees, creeping along to get close enough to hear.

"What do you suppose he wants?" said one male voice.

"I have no idea," replied another one, this one with a slightly higher-pitched tone. "We were told to find the castle and get a look at its defences. I don't know any more than you do."

Voice One slowly arrived under Buffy's tree. "What castle? We've been wandering for hours and I don't know about you, but I haven't seen any evidence of anything castle-like."

"Well the fyarl seemed certain," said Number Two.

"It's a fyarl demon," replied One. "For all we know it told Julius about a pile of rocks that looked like a pretty house to it."

Buffy glanced at Angel and they held position, hoping for more information. A moment later, One and Two came into view. They were vampires, both of them with the look of thugs kept around for cannon fodder and to keep the numbers up. Basically, not too smart and not that pretty either. They trundled on, still moving in the general direction of the Hogwarts grounds.

Two heaved a sigh, and said, "And what's with Julius and that snake demon guy anyhow?"

One shrugged. "I dunno," he replied. "He is kowtowing to that guy. What's his name?"

"Something about voles," said Two.

At that, Buffy and Angel both tensed, the exchange between them silent as they decided which vampire to kill and which to get information out of. They could wait and hope they heard more, but the longer they waited, the more likely the vampires would find their way to the grounds. Then they were out of the trees and One was staked in an instant. Angel had Two pinned, and snarled at him, "What are you doing here?"

Two stared at him, and said, "Man, that fyarl didn't say anything about this being anyone else's territory. Maybe we can work somethin' out?" Buffy, just out of sight, raised her eyebrow at Angel in inquiry. His eyes narrowed, then he nodded a little. While it was aimed at Buffy, agreeing with her plan to trick the information out of the demon, Two took it as agreement to his proposal.

"First," Angel informed him. "You tell me what the hell you're doing here, then I'll decide whether there's anything to work out."

"I can live with that," replied the vampire. "See, my boss, Julius, joined up with this guy, some sorta demon, but I don't know what kind." He'd relaxed a little as he spoke, seemingly confident in his ability to talk Angel out of killing him. "He's some sort of warlock-type and he wanted some help in taking out this weird castle full of demons like him. Or something like that, I wasn't too clear on the details."

"And he thinks there's a castle somewhere around here?" Angel asked.

Two shrugged. "They sent a fyarl out to check before. Something about it not setting off the wards like other things would. But hey, if you haven't seen anything . . ." he trailed off.

Angel snorted. "Whatever this demon is looking for, it's not here. I've been here a pretty long while and I don't recall seeing any castle filled with magic-wielding demons."

"See, that's the thing," Two groused, having seemingly found a sympathetic audience. "You ask a fyarl to do recon, you never know what it's actually found 'cause the things're so dumb they'll call a pile of rocks a castle. I mean, the directions were so bad they had to send out half a dozen search parties to see if they could find the stupid 'castle'." Here he made air quotes.

"There are six groups of you wandering around here looking for a castle?" Angel asked, eyes suddenly wide.

"Yeah-" Two was cut off by Angel slamming the stake home. As the vampire turned to dust, a shocked expression on his face, the Slayer and her boyfriend hurried off into the brush, trying to track down the other searchers. As they found the other pairs of vampires, the two heard bits of Voldemort's plans. Since the demons didn't set off the Hogwarts wards, he was going to use them to sneak up on the castle and as a means of getting his Death Eaters in the door, so to speak. They were also supposed to provide a means of leading the Death Eaters in on foot, through the forest, rather than by wizarding means, which the castle was well-defended against.

They caught the sixth pair right on Hogwarts grounds, but weren't able to kill them both before one activated a portkey and vanished.

Despite all their efforts, not only had Voldemort gotten the information he needed, they still didn't know when the attack would happen, and without knowing exact which kinds of demons had been recruited by the wizard, there was no way of setting up proper defences.

"Bet he attacks next Tuesday," Buffy muttered as they hurried up to Dumbledore's office.

Harry stepped out of the alcove he'd been hidden in moments before in case the approaching footsteps turned out to be Snape. "Bet who attacks next Tuesday?"

"Voldemort," Buffy replied. "He's recruited vampires like Angel and some other demons to get past the wards."

Buffy saw Harry's lips tighten and his face settle into something resembling her "The Apocalypse just started" face. Still, all he said as he fell in with them was, "But why Tuesday? I'd lean more towards smack in the middle of exams. He does tend to try to drive Hermione batty that way."

Buffy smiled a little at that. "Everything happens on Tuesday." She paused. "At least with me. Angel claims it's always Wednesdays for him."

They reached Dumbledore's office and Buffy whipped out a familiar-looking potion and some witch hazel.

"Creature Confections," Harry said hurriedly, and the gargoyle swung aside to let them in. Buffy pouted, but put away the potion.

"What is with you and wanting to melt things with that potion of yours?" Angel asked.

"What?" Buffy looked affronted. "It's faster, isn't it?"

Harry and Angel exchanged looks. "I guess Dumbledore should be grateful Harry knows the password right now," Angel said to her.

When they reached the door, Harry was about to reach up and knock, when he changed his mind and stood back. "Harry?" Buffy asked.

He didn't answer, just waited with a smile, until Dumbledore's voice came through the door. "Do come in, Harry."

"Someday I'll figure out what your spying mechanism is, Professor," Harry told him with a shake of his head as the three walked into the office.

The headmaster didn't respond to that, and turned to ask Buffy and Angel, "So, what brings you both to my office this evening?"

"Voldie's teamed up with a bunch of demon vamps and they're coming to party," Buffy told him. "They've been scouting for a while now," she added.

Dumbledore's appearance of casual unconcern and his gentle smile disappeared, and his look sharpened. "How have they gotten past the wards?" he asked.

Angel shrugged, exchanging looks with Buffy and Harry. "My best guess? Your wards don't know what we are, and they don't recognise us when we pass through. You didn't know I was in the woods until Hagrid found me, after all."

"We don't know a lot," Buffy said. "The vamps we caught didn't know a lot, so all we can tell you is that it's probably soon, and there's going to be a bunch of demons, vamps and wizards."

"Then we must prepare," the headmaster told them. With a spryness that belied his age, Dumbledore stood, and strode to a bellpull on the far side of the office. He tugged it once, sharply, then turned back to Buffy and Angel. "What would you suggest for the defence of the school?"

They settled in to begin planning out defences, joined shortly thereafter by the four house heads.

* * *

It was lucky Buffy and Angel had caught the vampire when they did. Two days later, after the school's teachers had finished the initial arrangement of defences, Voldemort's army attacked. Buffy had started off fighting with Harry and his friends, but rapidly found herself isolated from them and defending packs of confused child and teenaged witches and wizards who didn't have the same ability to defend themselves as Harry and his friends did.

She was in a losing fight with a crowd of demons, only half of which she recognised the species, when Angel came up out of nowhere and dealt with five of them in seconds. "Where have you been?" he demanded as he ducked and weaved.

Buffy glared. "Where have _I_ been?" she replied. "You were five minutes late for meeting me today. You knew where I'd be. Where were you?"

"So I got caught up talking to Seamus," Angel replied. "Up," he said as he swung his broadsword around in an easy motion to cut the legs out from under the demon behind his girlfriend. Buffy didn't even think as she launched herself into the air, choosing to use her legs to advantage and simultaneously sent to demons heads snapping around. From the way the one in front dropped, it looked like breaking its neck would kill it.

It slowly stood, shaking its head, which snapped the vertebrae back into place. So, maybe not.

While Buffy was watching, a chaos demon slammed into her from behind, sending her flying. The knives she'd been using in lieu of her usual stakes also went flying. She still came up fighting, using the spikes on one demon to sheer off the sword-like appendages of another, which she used to take off the head of the chaos demon. In the momentary pause created by her triple-play attack, she whipped out her erinaceous potion, flinging it over three demons she didn't recognise, including the one with the no-longer-broken-neck, followed by her powdered witch hazel. All three let out screams that turned into bubbling gurgles as they melted away.

The first years Buffy had been protecting promptly turned green, but they let Buffy and Angel shepherd them up the hill back toward Hogwarts. As the kids made it into the castle, Buffy paused to snag a sword off of one of the suits of armour in the hall before turning and heading back out into the fray.

All around were the sounds of fighting, wizard-style. A rapid fire of spells, both with, and without, incantations and the odd sounds that accompanied sudden transfigurations, criss-crossed the field. Even as Buffy settled into the intense physical fighting she was most comfortable with, she caught sight of Neville Longbottom slamming out spell after spell, including one that had a death eater singing "I'm a Little Teapot."

Angel heard it too and shook his head in dismay, even as Buffy shot Neville a weird look. "It's too bad Xander isn't here," she told Angel.

"Why's that?" her boyfriend asked as he ducked away from a cruciatus curse.

"This looks like something out of _Star Wars_, that's why," Buffy said. "All the light beams and stuff."

Right then, they heard Ron's voice, "Ginny!" It was terrified, anguished and desperate. As one, Buffy and Angel turned to see Ginny, hands empty, on her knees in front of – "Malfoy! Get away from her!" Ron shouted at the pale, tall, blond death eater who had her at his mercy.

Knowing they were going to be too late, Buffy and Angel started slamming their way forward.

Ginny suddenly dropped sideways, her leg moving up in a move Buffy herself had taught the redhead. Ginny had tremendous flexibility and her legs were almost at 180 degree angle as her foot slammed up, into Lucius Malfoy's chin, causing a cracking sound that was audible in one of those sudden lulls that can possess a battlefield. His head at an unhealthy angle, Malfoy dropped like a rock. Ginny rolled away, scooping up her wand as she went.

Grinning, Angel turned to Buffy, "I think that falls under pretty damn cool, don't you?" he inquired conversationally.

She grinned back. "Oh yeah."

"You think that's funny . . . Slayer?" Draco snarled. He looked furious. He also looked just a little silly in his costume, clearly meant to imitate the death eater uniform. Unfortunately, his transfiguration skills weren't quite up to the task, and the black robes looked a little too like hastily modified school robes, and the silver mask looked like a hastily spray-painted Halloween mask.

"You think that's a good outfit . . . wannabe?" Buffy responded. She easily settled into a defensive stance.

His nostrils flaring at being mocked, Draco launched his first attack. "Crucio!" he shouted.

Buffy leaned easily out of the way and asked, "That all you got?"

With that, Draco began a barrage of spells, enough to keep Buffy dodging. Each easy swerve out of the way seemed only to make him angrier. Suddenly, from off to the side, they heard Hermione's voice snap out, "Honestly Buffy, _must_ you toy with him?" Then Hermione irritably stormed past, saying, "Stupefy!" The red beam slammed into Draco with the force of a freight train and sent him flying. They managed to get a few more up to the safety of the castle, with a bound Draco sent in as a prisoner.

However, in spite of their successes, the defenders were still slowly giving ground. There just weren't enough fighters on their side, while the attacking army of demons and death eaters were nothing but. Buffy was forced to use her magic to defend herself and Angel from the oncoming witches and wizards, which cut into her effectiveness against the demons. Most of the defenders didn't have a clue how to deal with the demons, and the demons were effectively immune to things like fire spells. It had to be a natural fire or natural sunlight to kill the ones vulnerable to such things.

All around was the sound of screaming and dying teenagers and teachers. People who had never agreed to be in this war and had just been dragged into it. Buffy set her teeth and kept fighting. Dragging those to injured to continue back to the castle over and over again. She'd been separated from Angel and was fighting back to back with Dean Thomas. He was doing an admirable job of holding off the magic-wielders, but he wasn't the kind of person who was born to fight.

Buffy felt him go down behind her, but there were just too many demons in front for her to check on him.

That was when a fresh round of screaming started.

It was a chorus of screams. Adult screams. Death eater screams. Everyone seemed to stop as every death eater on the field suddenly clutched at his or her arm, right where the dark mark resided. They dropped to the ground, writhing in apparent agony, as the marks evaporated in a curl of tar-like black smoke. When the last of the smoke cleared, every death eater lay dead on the field.

On seeing that, every demon with the common sense that God gave gravel was fleeing the scene. It was one thing to be part of a vast army. It was quite another to be part of a less-than-vast army that was about to come face to face with the Slayer that killed The Master, stopped the rising of Acathla and the Judge, and her vampire boyfriend, the former Scourge of Europe.

Which only left the big, strong, but truly stupid demons on the field. Buffy started conjuring really big anvils and dropping them on those demons.

Angel's first word on catching up to her was a very disapproving, "Buffy."

"Angel!" She smiled, flicked her wand one last time, and then happily leaped into his arms to kiss him.

"We're in the middle of a fight, you know," Ron groused, even as he imitated Buffy's example.

Buffy and Angel split apart and came at the demons in a more conventional style. That is, blades flashing in the firelight of the torches that lit up the area, the clove through the last of the demons like the wrath of God.

* * *

"Wrath of God?" Ron asked as they sat in the Common Room of Gryffindor tower, each one letting everyone else know how their part of the fight had gone.

Hermione shot him an exasperated look. "If you can think of a better way to describe how they looked to Harry, I'd be delighted to hear it."

"I'm still stuck on 'clove'," Buffy admitted.

Ron nodded agreeably. "That too," he said.

Buffy turned to Harry. "So, now to the hero of the hour, how _did_ you manage to get the vole of death guy?"

"Vole of death guy?" Ginny echoed from her spot snuggled next to Harry. He seemed upset by her near-brush with death and didn't look like he was letting go any time soon. Ginny seemed extremely not-upset by this and looked like she wasn't going to be moving any time soon.

"None of the demons knew his name. They thought he was making some sort of comment on the Black Plague," Angel said with a shrug. "Vole de morte. Apparently their French only stretched so far."

Hermione's eyes boggled a little and she shook her head.

Harry decided to answer the question before Hermione's head exploded. "It seems that the demonic powers I get from the fithian part of me goes beyond just being able to see souls. I can . . . sort of manipulate them. A little." Hermione took a deep breath and opened her mouth. "I'll tell you about it later Hermione, I promise," Harry said. She settled back, temporarily appeased. "Voldemort had made these things, horcruxes they're called, by ripping his soul apart and sticking the pieces into other things. It sort of kept his spirit bound to this plane of existence, so he'd be able to put himself together again any time someone killed him." Harry took a deep breath and continued. "He'd gotten one of the bits attached to me when he tried to kill me as a baby. It's why I had that connection to him."

"Oh Harry," Hermione said, moving closer and laying a hand on his arm.

Ron's eyes were just wide, and he looked very pale, the freckles standing out on his skin.

"He was there, and it was like everything Buffy had told me about using those powers fell into place. I could feel the bit attached to me, and feel the connection between all the bits of his soul. I just . . . sort of . . . pulled them loose and let go." He shook his head, his eyes distant. "I couldn't have done it if he hadn't done that to his soul, but since he had, it was possible. It was like all the bits had just been waiting for the chance to move on. So they did."

There was a silence, and then Ginny turned to Harry and said, "You know what this means, right?"

"What?" Harry asked.

"Dumbledore was wrong about something. That power 'the Dark Lord knows not' was your demon powers." She grinned. "We get to tell him he was wrong about something."

Hermione rolled her eyes while the others snickered a little.

Buffy meanwhile pulled herself up and turned on her laptop. "Is there some reason you have to do that now?" Ron asked.

"Yes," Buffy said. "I don't think Giles will ever forgive me if I don't tell him about all this." she plonked down, signed in and looked at her email. A moment or two of clicking and she was reading something. Then she was bolting to her feet, cursing and heading for the exit.

"Buffy? What's wrong?" Angel asked, echoed by the others as the followed her out the portrait hole.

Her breath hissed from between her teeth as she hurried down the hall. "I need Dumbledore to make me a portkey straight to Sunnydale. The mayor's about to turn into a giant demon snake at the graduation ceremony, and Giles says Kendra's in a coma at the hospital after trying to prevent one of the pre-rituals. I need to get back there now."

"Oh my," Hermione said, even as they all rushed to keep up.

Harry slowed for a moment, then sped up. "Lucky giant snakes are a specialty of mine, isn't it?" he said with a small smile.

"Harry you don't have to—"

He interrupted the blonde. "It's fine. I've been told you have a saving people thing anyhow." He grinned. "Besides, I have to follow you at least as far as Dumbledore's office. Don't think I don't see you fingering that hedgehog potion."

"Buffy," Angel moaned in exasperation.

"What?" she asked. "It's useful."

And so the Slayer and her friends hurried off to another adventure.

The End

I'm done! Finished! Ha! Yes!

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No! No sequels! No! It's over dammit!


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